Beyond the Horizon
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Sequel to Learning to Soar and Free Falling. Desmond has returned, alive but trapped in the body of an eagle, only to find that he is not the only one that has changed. Nine months is a long time to be presumed dead, and those he loves have gone on without him. But Juno is planning something so terrible it will take all of them together to stop her- and they're running out of time.
1. Chapter 1

**This is part three of a trilogy, and so I strongly recommend reading Learning to Soar and Free Falling before this, as this starts up right where Free Falling left off.**

**Also: This fic continues to pretend Unity and Rogue don't exist yet, so no spoilers.**

**-/-**

Haytham Kenway had been ten years old when his father was murdered in front of him.

It had been the most horrible experience of his life (until that moment). It had torn him to pieces inside, and nearly destroyed him for good. If not for something that had happened when he was fifteen, Haytham would have gone on to live a life as empty and alone as it had been in those first few years after his father's death.

He'd gotten lucky, when his wings had grown in, and luckier still when he'd met the people who would become his family. There had only been four of them, then- Haytham himself, Altair, Ezio, and-

And Edward.

He wasn't Haytham's father, technically. He was an Edward Kenway from some other timeline, a different man but a _familiar _one. He'd been something like a mix of elder brother and closest friend, and Haytham had always been grateful for what was basically a second chance to know the man.

Losing him the second time- watching soldiers cut him to pieces because they'd seen his wings and decided he must be a monster- had been worse than the first. And being blamed for Edward's death had only served to make the whole thing even more of a nightmare. It had taken years to regain the trust that- through no fault of his own- he had lost that day.

It had been unfair, and there had been days when Haytham had hated them all for how easily they had convinced themselves he was a traitor. There were times, in the months and years of solitude that followed, when Haytham had considered changing sides, to prove them right out of sheer stubbornness. But he was not by nature a petty man, and besides- it seemed disrespectful to Edward's memory.

So much of Haytham's life has spun out of first his father's death, and then Edward's. He's only just gotten to a place in his life where he can feel happy again, that he has his family, a girlfriend, a purpose. And now there is a man in front of him- although 'man' may not be the right word, Haytham decides, as he looks right through the man's semitransparent body- wearing Edward's face, looking at him with an expression so achingly familiar it makes Haytham's stomach clench. Because this isn't possible. He refuses to do as much as hope that any of this is real. Not when it could be so easily snatched away a third time.

"No," he says, turning his back and striding away. "Whoever you are, whatever you need, I want nothing to do with it."

The man hesitates, then hurries after Haytham. He can hear the footsteps on the ground behind him, softer and lighter than they should be, and then there is a hand on his shoulder. "Haytham-"

For half a second, Haytham just stands there, as hot rage rolls over him. He does not move at all until his mind is full of the anger and nothing else. Then, when he can't keep still any longer, he pivots around on one foot, turning so the whole weight of his body is behind his fist as he slams it into the other man's face.

The phantom staggers back, body fading and flickering and almost vanishing entirely before he seems to gather himself, and he solidifies again. His face twists into an expression of hurt surprise, and he takes several steps backward.

"Don't," Haytham snarls. "Don't speak to me in his voice, don't stand there wearing his face, and don't come near me again. Not if you value your life." And again he turns to leave, because he does not want to see this, to be taunted by some spirit with Edward's face.

But the man does not leave, does not even hesitate to follow after him. Haytham tries to ignore him, but the man is persistent and Haytham turns around to face him, crossing his arms and glaring. He's not in the mood for this right now.

"What are you?" Haytham asks (demands). "_Who _are you? What do you want?"

"Who else would I be?" the man asks. He sounds genuinely confused. "Haytham, you _know _me."

"No," Haytham said. "You look like a man I once knew. That's the only possible explanation. Anything else is… impossible."

"Says the man with wings."

Haytham glances over his shoulder, and flexes his wings almost guiltily. It's poor logic, to assume that just because one impossible thing is true, everything impossible must be as well. On the other hand… it's hard to resist believing in the thing he wants most in the world when it stands in front of him. He takes a deep breath. "Tell me then," he says, not looking at the other man. "If this… delusion of yours is true, how are you alive? _Are _you alive? And why did you never say anything to any of us?"

"I don't know," the man says. "I remember dying-" and Haytham catches the look of pain that's there and then gone across his face, like remembering an old wound. "It… there was a woman. I didn't know her, but she saved me."

"No," Haytham said. "I saw the body. You can't be alive."

"I saw it too," says the ghost. "I said she saved me, but to do that she had to change me, too. We're half bird already. She just finished the job. Sometimes I can sort of… project myself into a human shape, like this, but it's not easy and it doesn't last for long. It's taken years to get this much figured out, and then to find all of you again. I came just in time to see what happened to Desmond, and after that I was with him."

"Desmond's dead," Haytham protests.

"So am I," says the ghost, with exactly the kind of cocky smile Edward always wore, the one that was more a challenge than anything else. "You said so yourself."

Then the smile vanishes, and the ghost says, "I understand why you don't want to believe me. It's been a long time, and like you said, there was a body. But I swear I am who I say I am."

"You haven't actually said," Haytham manages, after a long pause. "Who are you?"

"You know already-"

"Say it out loud," Haytham insists. He needs to hear it from the man himself. Maybe then he'll believe, and he wants so _badly_ to believe. "Tell me."

The spirit takes a deep breath, and speaks with a kind of slow seriousness. "My name is Edward James Kenway," he says. "In another life, I would have been your father, but in this one I am a dead man in the body of an eagle, and I need your help."

And it is this last part that shatters Haytham's denial into a thousand pieces. Because Edward has never asked for his help before, not for any favor no matter how small. It's always been the other way around, and Haytham knows there's zero chance he can turn the man away now, not if there's even the smallest possibility he is who he says he is.

From that moment, Haytham believes.

-/-

They sit and talk for a long time, and the longer they speak, the more convinced Haytham becomes that he has made the right choice. Every word Edward speaks, every movement he makes, only serves to bring back long forgotten memories of the man he had once known. He can think of no other explanation for his being here.

"Why did you say you need my help?" Haytham asks, when they have spoken for a while.

Edward sighs, and makes a nervous, unhappy gesture with one hand. "I told you," he says. "I'm not exactly human anymore. In a few minutes it's going to be too hard to keep this form, and then you'll see… you'll see exactly what I am now."

"An eagle," Haytham says. He'd been paying attention, earlier. "There must be worse ways to live."

"There are," Edward says. "Such as being dead, for example. I never said I wasn't grateful, but there are some things a bird just can't do."

"Such as?"

"The woman," Edward says. "The one who saved me and Desmond."

And Haytham hasn't even had time to think that Desmond is alive too. There's simply no more room in his mind for extra surprises right now. Later- he'll deal with Desmond's survival later.

Edward goes on. "Desmond told me that her name is Minerva. She's a precursor, and has an enemy who also happens to want to rule the world."

"Juno," Haytham says.

"So you know her," Edward says.

"Only by sight," Haytham says. "Not personally."

"We found her," Edward says. "A while ago, and followed her to… I don't know. Some lake, half an hour away or so. She went diving, and came back up with a little girl. I don't know exactly what happened, but it looked like a kidnapping. They drove back in a van, I flew too close, and the whole thing crashed."

Haytham stares at him, scarcely daring to believe. "The girl," he says. Minerva, reincarnated by Ezio and Shaun months ago and then lost again. From Edward's story, there's no one else she could be. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know," Edward says. "She ran- smart girl. Do you know her?"

"It's… complicated," Haytham says. "And a long story."

Edward makes a strained noise, and Haytham realizes suddenly how tired the other man looks, like he's been running for hours. "Then you'd better leave it for later," he says. "I don't have much time left, and I wanted to explain that what I needed your help with is Juno. She's a menace, and the woman needs to die. But it… it's not something I can do myself, anymore."

"Well," Haytham says, trying to sound casual. He can see the frustration on Edward's face, the disgust at his own inability to act as he wants. "That's a coincidence. We've been trying to do exactly that for most of the past year."

Edward nods, and forces a smile. "I probably should have guessed," he says, and jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the smashed van behind them. It's the same one Edward had forced into crashing, and Haytham had only come to the junkyard in the first place to track it down, and hopefully find clues that might lead to Juno. Then Edward's smile vanishes, and he lets out a sudden, sharp cry of pain. Haytham is on his feet in an instant, crossing the space between them in the space of a heartbeat. "Edward?"

But the man suddenly vanishes, as completely as if he had never been at all. Haytham stares at the untouched dirt ground where Edward had been sitting only moments ago, torn between incomprehension and despair. He stares for a painful, endless moment, until he hears an eagle screech behind him, and turns to see the bird swooping down so close to his face they almost collide. Haytham jerks back, and the eagle- Edward- swoops past him to land on the junkyard fence. And it's hard to read any expression on a bird's face, but Haytham could almost swear Edward is laughing at him.

He makes a noise of annoyance- which Edward completely ignores- and hops the fence. He has walked these streets before, many times, but until now he had never felt any hope that they would succeed in killing Juno. But today is different. The impossible is happening in front of his eyes. Edward and Desmond are alive, and they have news of Juno and Minerva.

His feet take him deeper into the city, where he can track down the others and share the miracle he's seen tonight. The eagle that is Edward follows him all the way, wings casting a reassuring shadow on the ground beside Haytham. And Haytham can't look up- he can't wander around the city staring at a bird like some kind of idiot- so he watches that shadow instead. His own wings are safely hidden again for the walk through the city but he _feels _them stir inside him, and although his feet are safely on the ground, he feels like the joy of what he's learned tonight is almost enough to make him fly.


	2. Chapter 2

Desmond watches the stars.

He's been doing that a lot these past few months, mostly because there's not much else to do, trapped in an eagle's body as he is. The boredom should bother him more, really, but most of the time it just… doesn't seem to matter. Flying as an eagle feels like everything good about flying as a human, but amplified and improved a hundredfold.

Human bodies, no matter what changes have been made to them, are not really designed to fly. Desmond had thought he knew what it meant to really fly, but until being reborn as an eagle he'd never realized how much his weight and size and general shape were holding him back. For all he had lost since dying, he has gained something as well. True, beautiful flight, the likes of which he's never even imagined. It's only at night, when exhaustion pulls at his wings and forces him down, that his mind starts to dwell on everything he's lost.

But tonight is different. Tonight, when he turns his eyes heavenward, it is not to distract himself from the usual loneliness, because he is not alone anymore. Altair is on the street below him, leaning casually against a lamppost, arms crossed, jacket hood pulled over his head, eyes scanning the crowd for the people he had come to meet.

Desmond keeps one eye on the man, too afraid of losing him again to risk looking away. But his other eye he points to the horizon, watching for an expected visitor of his own. There's no sign, though, and Desmond gives a mental eye roll and eventually gives up looking. This isn't the first time he's spent the night alone, and he's far more interested in Altair right now.

Eventually, Altair straightens, turning to greet a woman as she hurries down the street toward him. Desmond has been perched at the top of the lamppost, but flies down now to land on Altair's shoulder. He has to dig his talons in a little to keep from falling off, but Altair doesn't make any protest. If anything, he seems to brighten a little, straightening and reaching a finger up to stroke one of Desmond's feet as if he still can't believe he's real.

"What's wrong?" The woman- Rebecca, Desmond realizes, now that he's closer- looks between Altair and Desmond, confusion obvious on her face. "You sounded like something was wrong when you called. And you left to find John hours ago, is he- did you-?"

"He's alive," Altair says. "Not that he deserves it."

"Then what stopped you?" Rebecca asks.

Altair points at Desmond, and Rebecca turns her curios gaze on him. At first she only seems confused, but then she breaks into a familiar, ear splitting smile. "Hey Des," she says. "Your wings look exactly the same."

"Where's Haytham?" Altair asks, as Desmond gives Rebecca a disbelieving look. He always forgets how perceptive she can be when she wants to take the effort. "We should get out of the city."

"Still at the junkyard, I think," Rebecca says. "He should have been back already, but…" she shrugs. "Maybe he found a lead, or something."

Perfectly on cue, Rebecca's phone starts to buzz, and when she pulls it out her face melts into an expression of relief. "Haytham," she says, pressing the phone to her ear. "Where are you?"

Haytham speaks for several moments, and Altair waits in silence as Rebecca listens intently. Her eyebrows go up, and she manages a few words of agreement, and then a goodbye. "He's back at his apartment," she tells Altair. "He says he has someone with him. Someone you and he both used to know."

Desmond watches Altair's face twist up in confusion as he tries to work out who Haytham's friend might be. If he'd only had a voice, Desmond could have explained. But it's only been a few hours since he showed himself to Altair, and there is a deep weariness in his bones that prevents him from trying to seem human again so soon. Not that he could have, not in public like this. So Desmond only sighs, and ruffles his feathers. At least their reactions will be entertaining.

Edward will get a kick out of that.

-/-

Edward is at Haytham's side, looking exhausted but human, when Rebecca leads Altair and Desmond (still on the man's shoulder) into the apartment. Rebecca- who after all has never met the man- goes straight to Haytham's side and looks at him impatiently, clearly waiting for an explanation. But Altair stops in the doorway, staring at Edward like he's just seen a ghost.

Which to be fair, he sort of has.

Until tonight, none of them had known Edward might still be alive. Of course, they hadn't known Desmond could be, either, but he had 'died' less than a year ago, amid circumstances that had been about as strange and unnatural as they could get. In his opinion, coming back was almost to be expected. Edward, on the other hand, had died years ago in as cruel and unfair a way as possible. No one much liked talking about him, and it had been years before Desmond had been told anything at all about him.

Meeting Edward in person last December had nearly been enough to convince him that this must be some sort of afterlife. After all, he was seeing dead people.

_He flies for hours before finally slowing._

_Desmond has no idea how long he's been in the air, and he doesn't much care. He feels like he's been waiting his whole life for the absolute freedom of this moment. And besides… if he dares to slow down, even for a moment, he knows the horror of the day will finally catch up with him._

_He'd died, or near enough to make no difference. His skin had burned where it touched the orb, and every cell in his body had felt like it was individually screaming in pain. Until finally he had fallen, helpless and broken, into a heap on the floor. And that should have been the end- would have been, if Minerva hadn't chosen (for reasons Desmond still doesn't fully understand) to save him._

_She'd healed him, changed him, and Desmond had flown off without a second thought, into the open air and the promise of freedom that flight has always held. Where he was going, where he had come from, none of that had mattered. But it does now, and Desmond feels his wings start to shake as he remembers the people he's left behind._

_He lands at last, stumbling and almost crashing as talons grip the rough bark of a branch on a nearby tree. There are no tears in him- birds don't cry. Birds don't do a lot of things. They don't speak, they don't laugh, they don't explain to their family that no, really, they're still alive, just different…_

_Panic rises up in Desmond then, exactly as he knew it would the moment he slowed down enough to land. It doesn't matter, whether he's alive or dead. Because as miraculous as this new gift of flight is, it's separated him from everyone he loves, just the same as if he'd really been dead._

_Something lands heavily next to Desmond, and he interrupts his self-pity to snap his head around and glare at the other eagle that has landed there. Its feathers are darker than Desmond's, and it- he- is a little larger. But there is understanding in his eyes, and that's enough to keep Desmond from taking flight again immediately. Those eyes are intelligent, far more than what he'd expect from a bird._

_And as he thinks back, he remembers that there had been an eagle in the temple, too. He'd seen it just before he almost died, and again as he shot through the cave on his way outside, to freedom. It had followed him, but Desmond had stopped paying attention soon after. This couldn't be the same bird. That just wasn't possible- there was no _reason _for some random eagle to follow him for hours and hours._

_The bird shakes his feathers and looks at Desmond with something that might be sadness before shaking himself out like a wet dog- and Desmond watches in amazement as a change works its way through the eagle, as the bird seems to vanish before him, and a ghostly, human shape takes his place._

_The man that had been a bird looks down at Desmond, serious despite his easy smile. "I wish we could have met in better times," he says, and his voice is rough and thoroughly out of use.. "But that's life. I'm Edward."_

_And that's when Desmond puts it all together, and recognizes the traces of Haytham and Connor on the stranger's face. His mind, already struggling with everything else he's been through today, nearly gives up completely in the face of this new impossibility. But then Edward starts to explain, with all the enthusiasm of a man that does not get to speak often enough._

_He talks about years spent on his own, about learning to shift his form, about searching far and wide for a family that is very good at not being found. And as Desmond listens, he lets himself believe that maybe- despite the inherent impossibility of seeing Edward here- his eyes are not lying to him. This is real, and he is still alive._

_And if Edward can master himself enough to appear human, then in time, Desmond is determined to do so as well._

It had taken months to get to that point, months of ceaseless, tiring work just to be able to look human temporarily. Edward is better at it- he's had more practice- but Desmond's happy enough with what he has. Usually.

At this moment, as Edward, Haytham, Rebecca, and Altair all begin to talk over one another as the ask questions and try their best to explain everything that's happened, Desmond is left with nothing to do but watch.

Edward is the only one that seems to notice Desmond's growing unease. And as the conversation continues to grow louder and more chaotic, he's the one that crosses the room to rest a hand on Desmond's head. It should make him feel better, but it only drives home how different… how _inhuman _he has become. They are two of a kind, him and Edward, cut off from the others by the same transformation that saved them in the first place.

He listens as Edward explains what they've done over the past few months. Not that there's all that much to tell. Days of flying and hunting, nights spent struggling to stay human as long as possible. Some nights go better than others- there are times when they sit and talk for hours, until exhaustion forces them back into the shape of an eagle. Other nights, things are… difficult. Sometimes the change just won't come, no matter how hard they try.

Someone bangs on the wall next door, shouts something about how loud they're getting. Haytham makes an annoyed noise. "Neighbors," he says, half an explanation and half an apology.

"This really isn't the best place for this conversation anyway," Altair says. "We need to leave, make new plans, get everyone else caught up on what happened tonight. And…" he exchanges a look with Haytham and Rebecca. "There's probably a few things we should explain, too."

And that's the moment when the sick feeling starts to rise up like nausea in Desmond's stomach. Because it honestly has not occurred to him until that moment that things could have changed all that much for the rest of them. After all, they're still human. Still the same people they always have been.

But to be human _is _to change, and Desmond feels a stabbing sense of loss as he realizes that the family he left behind isn't the same family he's coming back to. He can only hope that there's still a place there for him.


	3. Chapter 3

There are eight of them staying over at the cabin in upstate New York that night. They get there in pairs and small groups, not all at once, coming as fast as they can (but not necessarily as fast as they would like). Edward and Desmond are first, nearly missing the place in the dark and doubling back when they realize they've gone too far. Neither of them has ever been there before, but Altair's instructions lead them there, eventually. Second, Altair, Haytham, and Rebecca, travelling together and eager to find out what will happen next. Connor, Ezio, and Shaun are the last to arrive, and Desmond can tell just by the looks on their faces that they don't quite believe what they've been told they'll find when they get there.

It's been hours since Desmond was forced back into his eagle's body, and the sheer excitement of seeing everyone again gives him the energy to change again. They're all gathered in the cabin's spacious main floor when Desmond shakes off his feathers right in front of the group. The three that have already seen this transformation (mostly) manage to watch this without batting an eye, but Ezio swears loudly and Shaun almost falls over backwards. They're both looking at him like they can't _quite _believe he's real, and Connor actually gets up and grasps Desmond by the arm. When he feels solid skin there, he smiles, just a little, and Desmond grins back. He's missed this. Missed them, all of them.

"I'm back," he says, and Edward gives an unhappy screech of protest from his perch behind them. Desmond rolls his eyes. "_We're _back," he amends.

"And there's a lot we need to talk about," Altair adds, speaking up for the first time.

"Like how it's possible for a couple of dead people to suddenly be…" Shaun splutters wordlessly and gestures to Desmond and Edward.

"No," Altair says, in a thoughtful voice that Desmond can _see _is driving Shaun crazy. "I think some things we just need to accept at face value. It's not worth trying to figure out the how or the why."

"So we're just okay with saying 'space magic did it' and leaving it at that?" Shaun demands.

"Because you don't have any experience with unusual first civilization phenomena," Haytham says drily, and Desmond is surprised when Shaun turns red as a tomato and stops arguing at once. Obviously something has happened while he was away, but this is just as obviously not the time to start asking questions.

"We need to figure out what to do next with Juno," Altair says. "We almost had her today, but-"

"I sort of interrupted, didn't I?" Desmond says, but he's not sorry. Altair had been acting rashly, dangerously, and he doesn't regret stopping him before he did something stupid.

"Yes," Altair says. "But we're still in a better position than we were this time yesterday. We know John's working with Juno now, and even if we don't know where she is, we know where to find _him_."

"Where?" Desmond asks.

"At Abstergo Entertainment," Haytham says, like this is supposed to help everything make sense.

"But how are we supposed to get in there?"

"Haytham and Rebecca have been undercover there for months," Shaun says.

"Wait, _what_-"

The surprise of this makes Desmond's hold on his form flicker and fade for a minute, and Ezio cocks his head in obvious alarm. "Does that happen a lot?" he asks.

"More than I'd like," Desmond admits. "But it's better than being a bird all the time, so I guess I'll take it."

"Hang on," Shaun says, and reaches across Ezio for his laptop bag, moving a little closer to the man than Desmond would have expected- Shaun's not the kind of guy that's big on the whole touching thing, but when Ezio puts an absentminded hand on Shaun's head, Shaun barely even seems to notice. No one else says anything about it either, so Desmond puts aside his confusion for the moment, watching instead as Shaun pulls open his laptop and starts scrolling through something. "I think I have something that can help," he says. "I've been looking through precursor records of some of the artifacts they left behind. There are a lot to go through, but specifically there's something in…" his face lights up and he jabs at something on his screen that only he can see. "Peru. I ignored it when I first saw it because the description had something to do with form stabilization and I thought it was useless for us. But I think that's how Juno stabilized herself into having a real body after you, ah… well, not died, I guess."

"And you think it could- what, make us human again?" Desmond asks. His heart is in his throat as he says it, because _that _would be the most insane thing he could imagine hearing right now.

"As human as you ever were," Shaun says, and Desmond stares blankly for a second before abruptly starting to laugh. He's not exactly sure why- relief, maybe, or surprise. The pure, tantalizing thrill of imagining himself being part of the group again is _awesome_, in the most literal sense of the word.

Desmond only realizes the others are starting to stare when Edward flies over and nips him on the finger. He stops laughing. "Yes," he says. "Yes, let's do that."

-/-

They split up after that, a decision that the rest of them seem to take in stride. But Desmond wants to argue (because after this long with no one but Edward for company, he feels childishly unable to say goodbye). But he doesn't, in the end. He just listens in silence as Altair decides where each of them will go. The scene has an air of familiarity about it, as if this has happened already. "Haytham, Rebecca, you two obviously need to stay in Montreal if you want to keep your cover."

"Of course," Haytham says, and Rebecca nods.

"Shaun, you're the one that knows about this artifact," Altair goes on. "And Desmond and Shaun are the ones that need it, so the three of you are going to Peru."

Ezio stirs uneasily from his place at Shaun's side. "What about me?" he asks. "The last time the two of us were split up, Shaun grew-"

"That can't exactly happen a second time," Altair interrupts, sharply. "He's already got wings, he's not going to get another set."

The only thing that stops Desmond from asking why (and _how_) Shaun got wings is the paralyzing confusion. And no one else seems at all surprised by this, just nod like it's old news, and the conversation moves on before Desmond can regain control of his mouth.

"Fine," Ezio says, in a voice that says clearly that it's not fine at all. "So where do you want me?"

"With me and Connor," Altair says. "I don't know about you, but I would really like to know what happened to Minerva."

Ezio's whole attitude seems to shift at this. He uncrosses his arms, and stops glaring at Altair long enough to nod. A moment ago, he'd seemed ready to argue for the chance to go to Peru (and Desmond would really like to know what his deal with Shaun is), but now he seems somewhat mollified. "You know I would," he says.

"Okay," Desmond says. "Hold on, I still have no idea what's going on here." He points at Shaun, half curious and half accusing. "You have _wings_?"

"It's sort of a new development," Shaun grumbles, and glances at Ezio. It's a complicated look, one that takes Desmond a second to process. And then it clicks.

"Oh!" he says. "You-" he looks back and forth between Shaun and Ezio. "You two are dating now?" There are probably less likely couples in the world, but Desmond's having a hard time thinking of any off the top of his head. He's known Ezio since before he was old enough to fly, and he never would have pegged Shaun as his type.

"No," Shaun says, firmly. "Absolutely not."

But there's clearly _something _going on, because everyone in the room is suddenly looking at the floor, or the ceiling, or anywhere except directly at the two men in question. "Sorry," Desmond says. "I shouldn't have asked, I guess."

"You didn't know," Rebecca says, suddenly looking Desmond straight in the eye. "I mean, how could you? No one will talk about it."

"Rebecca…" Haytham says, warningly.

"They went to some precursor site in Egypt," Rebecca goes on, completely ignoring Haytham. "And because clearly we haven't learned not to mess with those already, they did something there that bonded them to each other."

"Bonded?"

"They can't keep their hands off each other," Rebecca says, so bluntly that Shaun winces. He doesn't argue, though, and neither does Ezio. "Literally. And they have this mental thing, so they sort of know what the other one does. And Shaun grew wings because Ezio has them."

"Oh."

"And they made a kid together," Rebecca adds as an afterthought. She grins at Desmond as his mouth drops open and he struggles to find something to say. Edward makes a high pitched noise that Desmond alone recognizes as laughter.

"We didn't _make _a kid," Shaun snaps. "We don't have all the necessary parts. We just reincarnated Minerva. Completely different."

"Of course," Desmond says. "Um…" A memory flashes suddenly to the front of his mind. Over a month ago, he and Edward had tracked Juno up to Montreal, and had caused an accident that (somehow) everyone had walked away from without major injury. There had been a girl there, one Desmond hadn't recognized and barely taken notice of at the time. But thinking back on it now, there had been something familiar about her. He tries to think of something to say, and in the end manages a heartfelt "Shit."

"Yep," Ezio says. "That pretty much sums it up."

There's nothing else to say after that. Nothing that anyone wants to say, anyway. Desmond lets himself fade back into the eagle's shape, more out of a desire to hide than actual exhaustion. He's tired of the constant revelations, and the reminders that things aren't the same as they had been nine months ago when he left. In time, he's sure it will fade but for now it's still a constant, raw wound that keeps him from being wholly at ease here.

Haytham and Rebecca leave that night, since they can't explain extended absences without raising suspicions. But the others- who will be traveling farther with no clear expectation of what will be waiting for them at the end of their journeys- decide on a night of rest before heading out.

Desmond spends the night awake and restless, flying between different rooms and trying to get comfortable. The truth is, it's been a long time since he slept indoors, and the walls and ceilings here make him feel claustrophobic. Finally, at some ridiculously early hour, Altair comes downstairs to find Desmond perched unhappily on the back of the room's single couch. For a second they just watch one another in a silence that seems to perfectly compliment the predawn quiet of the room. Altair looks like he hasn't slept any more than Desmond has, and even in the dim lighting Desmond can see the lines on his face, and the gray starting to creep into his hair. Altair is older than he had been when last they saw one another, and Desmond knows he is as well. Things have changed.

Then Altair smiles, just a little, no more than a tiny quirk along one side of his mouth, and collapses unceremoniously onto the couch. Desmond half jumps and half falls into the narrow hollow between the couch back and Altair. And there, with the steady rise and fall of Altair's chest a reassuring presence and a promise of safety and peace, Desmond finally manages to sleep.

**-/-**

**Next chapter: Juno makes plans**


	4. Chapter 4

She has lived in nicer places than this tiny apartment. Centuries and millennia ago, she had been someone great, someone _powerful_, a woman that had held the fate of millions in her hand. Had they succeeded in finding a way to stop the solar flares then, Juno would have gone on to be famous, rich, respected even. But they had failed, and so she had been left alone to suffer through century after century of sheer _stupidity _from humans as they struggled to understand the most basic properties of the natural world.

There have been times when she swore the wait would never end, and she would be trapped in her self-made tomb forever, until even the humans had gone from the planet and she was left alone to wait for the end of days. And there had been days when she thought that would be preferable to listening to the mindless drivel of their thoughts filter through her mind.

But now that she's free, everything is different. This is her second chance, to do more- to become more than she would have in her own time. She will rule this world, and in time she will rule more. For now, these are distant plans, far from completion, and Juno has become a very patient woman. She is happy to wait, to let the world spin on without her intervention, knowing that her enemies do her work for her even as she waits.

And there are other distractions at the moment, anyway.

John groans under her, nearly drowning out the rattle and thuds of the cheap wooden bedframe that barely manages to support their combined weight. He's panting, the exhaustion of his human body fights against the hungry desire of his inherited desire. John is not the husband Juno watched die (a very long time ago now), merely an echo or a cheaply made substitute. Sometimes this makes her hate him more than any other human in the world, for daring to pretend to be someone he's not. Someone better than he could even imagine.

And then there are times, like now, when he shuts his mouth and drops his pants, when an echo is good enough. Then again, she's been on her own a very long time. Nearly anything warm and breathing would be good enough.

Juno could have kept going, could have kept exploring every inch of the man's body until she knows it as well as her own. But John looks like he's liable to collapse from exhaustion in another second, so Juno gasps in one last moment of ecstasy and rolls off him, breathing more heavily than usual.

For a while they lay in sweat soaked silence, lost in their own thoughts, and then finally John speaks. "What happens next?" he asks, voice deferential in a way she only ever hears when he speaks to her.

"I still have much to teach you," Juno says, without taking her eyes off the water stained ceiling overhead. "When you are rested, we will continue."

"I didn't mean- ah-" John licks his lips and shifts next to her on the tiny, creaking bed. Obviously, her words have distracted him. "I didn't mean right here," he goes on. "I meant the big picture."

"I know what you meant," Juno says. "But the answer is simple. We wait."

"Wait?" John repeats. "For what? For those men to come after us? For the girl to escape?"

Juno only laughs. The man has no idea who it is they're hunting, or what their true goal is. He knows only that they have enemies, and nothing more about them. As he should. With any luck, he'll never learn- if he ever finds out what she has planned for him she'll gain another enemy, and this is one with enough borrowed knowledge to possibly pose a threat. "They mean nothing," she says dismissively. "Although the girl…" Minerva, she would very much like to see again. Her death is long overdue, and Juno deserves to be the one who delivers it. "The girl we should find."

"So we let them do whatever they want?" John demands.

"We know who they are, we know where they are, and we know what they want," Juno says. "That makes them easy to manipulate."

"_You _know all that," John says, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. "You never tell me anything."

"Because you don't yet need to know, beloved," Juno says, and watches him relax a little at the false tenderness in which she cloaks her word. "But if it will make you happy, I will tell you that what they desire most is my death." He sucks in a breath, and she smiles. "Which is why we will give it to them."

-/-

It's not (quite) that simple, of course. Juno has no intention of simply throwing her life away after everything she's done to survive, but it's important that her enemies believe her dead. And better still that they believe themselves responsible, that they grow lazy and arrogant in their imagined success. Only then will Juno be given the time and space she needs to plan her true victory.

"I don't like this," John says when they finally drag themselves out of bed and begin finalizing their plans. "It's dangerous- there's too much chance of something going wrong."

"It must be dangerous," Juno snaps. "We do not pit ourselves against fools, and they will know if there is no real danger."

"But that-"

"Will work," Juno insists.

"You're planning to drive a car into a lake," John says flatly. It's a far less impressive version of the plan than the one she'd outlined to him earlier. "So that they'll assume you drowned and will leave you alone long enough to finish whatever your plan is. The one you still won't tell me about."

"Exactly," Juno says.

"What if you actually do drown?" John demands. "What happens to your precious plan then?"

"I told you," Juno says. "There must be a real element of danger. They have already tried to run us off the road once. This time, they will succeed." It's not a complicated plan, but these are men that live and breathe complicated plans. They have been trained to do so, not only by long lives spent as assassins, but also by the lies that time travel makes necessary. They will expect her to come at them with the strongest weapons in her arsenal, and so of course she will do no such thing.

She will simply allow them to learn where she is hiding, and then lead them on a merry chase until they reach just the right bend in the road. And then, the false loss of control, the crash, the fall into the river. A fall no human would be able to survive, and in fact Juno has chosen this particular stretch of road because of the many that have died there in the past. But she is not human, no matter what form she may be in at the moment. She will survive, and she will do so in secret.

She will win.

"You will not be there," Juno informs John, when he looks ready to argue again. "You are only human, and would not survive." Not that she expects him to live to see the end of all this, but she expects he will still be useful in the future.

"Then where will I be?" John asks, and there's a note of bitter hurt in his voice that for a moment gives Juno pause. This man is not perfect, he is not the man she wants or remembers, but he loves her in his own twisted way, and resembles Aita enough for that to matter.

"Look for the girl," Juno says, voice softer than it has been. "Minerva."

"Why do you care so much about her?" John asks, and he sounds less angry and petulant than he has up until now. "She's just some kid, isn't she?"

Juno only shakes her head. "Find her," she repeats. "That's all that matters."

But John isn't willing to let the issue go. "Is she one of your mysterious enemies?" he asks. "The ones I'm not allowed to know about?"

"It's for your own good that you never know them," Juno says. She's not completely sure if the assassins know about John, but if they don't now, they certainly would as soon as he learned who they are. Whatever John's talents may be, and he does have some, subtlety is absolutely not among them. "And Minerva is… no longer an enemy." Not now that she's been reduced to a child, helpless and stupid and nearly human. "But I have questions that need answering."

Not that she expects Minerva will be in any state to answer. The reincarnation process had been interrupted when Minerva went through it, and Juno knows all too well what affect that can have on the mind. She'd spent thousands of years dwelling on what her own fate would be if anything went wrong when the day finally came for her own return. The list of horrible side effects is long, but uniformly depressing.

John nods, hesitant but obedient. "I'll bring her to you," he says.

-/-

The day Juno has planned for her accident dawns dreary and rainy, exactly perfect for her needs. Her enemy remains scattered and separated, but she only needs to lure one of them in. She picks the oldest one, Altair, because he is the one the others trust the most, and she knows they will not doubt his word if he is convinced she is dead.

He is alone, when Juno tracks him down. It's not hard- the man can run and hide as much as he wants to, but Juno has senses that go beyond the merely human. His life and his body have been so twisted by her own intervention and Minerva's that he pulses like a homing beacon on the edge of Juno's consciousness as soon as she chooses to look. She's there waiting when he turns a corner in the middle of a nearly deserted neighborhood, and she's laughing when he looks up and makes eye contact with her. She's already running by the time he gets over his initial shock and comes charging after her.

She can feel every footstep behind her, driving into her skull like a drumbeat. Strong. Steady. Determined. Driven by the certain knowledge that he will catch her because he has no other choice. And this is the other reason she'd decided to come to him rather than any of the others. She'd seen him, at the temple. Upset and mourning in that terribly emotional way humans had. The boy she'd destroyed to come back had meant something to Altair. He has no intention of letting her escape alive.

And then they're driving. Juno is not a skilled driver, but she doesn't have to be for this task. If anything, her clumsy attempts at escaping will convince him the crash is nothing but accidental. Her heart is in her throat and Juno laughs at the thrill of adrenaline rushing through her. This- this is what it means to really be alive. She's on the edge of life and death, very nearly _but never quite _out of control. And suddenly, she sees it.

She makes a sudden, sharp turn to the left, plowing straight into the metal guard rail that separates the road from the river below. She crashes through with a screaming sound of bending, breaking metal, and the whole world seems to go into slow motion as she falls. The world goes silent, and the only thing Juno can hear is her own breathe. The fall seems to last forever, and then she takes one last, long breath in, and the car hits the water with a splash like a cannonball.

Juno opens her eyes, watching through the window until finally the car hits the muddy bottom of the river. Then she counts to thirty, and forces the door open. Under normal circumstances, a difficult or impossible feat. But Juno is stronger than any mere human, and she'd known this was coming. She has tools ready, and she knows to keep calm.

She stays underwater until she judges herself far enough from Altair that he won't be able to see her surface, and then comes up for air. The first breath is sweet, and she breathes deeply, panting after her lengthy swim. She laughs, and runs her hands through her soaking wet hair. The unfortunate part of being too far away for Altair to see her is that she can't see him, either. But she can imagine the scene playing out near the crash site, as he studies the river, and realizes it would be a miracle if anyone were to survive.

And he's right. Juno's survival is a miracle. One of her own making, and she feels powerful and triumphant as she starts the long walk back to the tiny, shitty apartment she's forced to call home. For now. Because now that she has the space and the time to see her plans through to completion, there's nothing to stop her from doing whatever she wants.

Juno has had a lot of time to think about what exactly it is that she wants. Over the centuries, she's figured it out, honed her desires until they are rock hard certainties inside her mind, a determination to see this through to the bitter end. And it all comes down to time.

She is going to reverse it. Time. Undo the centuries of harm that humans have done to the planet, and bring her own society back. And everyone that's hurt her, the assassins that hunt her now, they will be the ones to suffer in her brave new world. When her people return from the past to rule the world again, Juno will be queen. And the humans- those she allows to survive- will be her willing slaves.

But there is a lot of work to be done before that can happen. Luckily, Juno has had a very long time to plan out exactly how to make that happen. "Fuck you," she whispers, in the general direction of where Altair must still be standing. Then she turns her back and leaves, mind already running on toward her next obstacle.

**-/-**

**I'm really sorry for the flood of new fics and chapters recently. I just started winter break (five weeks with no class! Woo hoo!) and suddenly I have all this free time I don't know what to do with! Sorry, again.**


	5. Chapter 5

Shaun has a bad habit of keeping his phone on too loud, so Desmond hears it when Altair calls and announces, "She's dead."

"Who?" Shaun asks, balancing the phone between one ear and his shoulder as he struggles with an unwieldy map. An old fashioned paper kind, because this is the nasty part of town where carrying any kind of technology means a person is likely to get mugged.

"Juno," Altair says, and Desmond watches as Shaun nearly drops the phone in surprise. He recovers, and listens in absolutely silence as Altair tells what sounds like a long story that Desmond doesn't bother listening to. He's almost drowning in the thrill of knowing Juno is dead. It's weird how satisfying to know he's outlived the person that killed him.

"Wow," Shaun says, when he finally hangs up the phone. Then he looks over at Desmond (an eagle at the moment) and Edward (human and insubstantial). "She's-"

"Dead!" Desmond laughs, surging up and back to human form so quickly that Shaun almost drops his phone.

"Do you really have to do that?" Shaun demands. "It's childish and annoying."

"Not for much longer," Desmond says, and then adds a cautious, "I hope." Because even though they're less than a mile from the precursor site that's supposed to stabilize the two of them, he won't believe in it completely until he sees the effects for himself.

"So do I," Shaun says emphatically. "The bird thing is getting really old."

"I'm sorry my being a bird instead of being dead inconveniences you," he says, without any ill will. Today is too good a day to ruin by arguing- they're only minutes away from maybe finding a cure, and apparently Juno is _dead_-

"Yea, well… apology accepted," Shaun grumbles. He still sounds upset, and Desmond can't really blame him. He's the one that's had to deal with all the difficulties of international travel. Although to be fair, he _had _insisted on shipping Desmond and Edward, as flying with two large birds of prey would attract unwanted attention.

Never again.

"So where's this place supposed to be?" Edward asks, shifting nervously on the balls of his feet. He's got a cautiously optimistic look on his face, and Desmond frowns. If this doesn't pan out, it's going to hit Edward way harder than him. He's been a bird only a few months, but for Edward it's been years. Desmond offered him a small smile, which Edward didn't bother to return. His normally cheerful face was drawn and worried today.

"That way, somewhere," Shaun said, waving a hand vaguely. "Although this is the middle of the countryside. I'm not sure how there could be something here and no one would have… noticed…" He trails off, and it's immediately clear why- a giant hole, perfectly rectangular, about the size of a football field, and maybe three stories deep, is sitting in the middle of the open field in front of them.

"So we go in now, right?" Desmond asks.

"Luckily we all have wings," Edward says, and shifts easily back into eagle form to soar down to the bottom of the hole. Desmond hesitates a little to make sure Shaun will be okay. He's still not used to him having wings- having Ezio's wings- but they haven't had the time to talk about it yet. Desmond isn't even sure Shaun wants to talk.

Shaun sighs, and grimaces as his wings break through the skin of his back. Then he catches Desmond's impatient look, and snorts. "Come on," he says. "Let's get going already." Desmond still hesitates a little, watching Shaun fly. He looks a little unsteady, but he's still doing remarkably well for someone that has only had his wings a couple months. Then Desmond sighs, and lets himself relax into the more natural form of the eagle for what he hopes is the last time.

There's nothing at the bottom of the hole, just a plain dirt floor and smooth dirt walls. Desmond forces himself to go back to human again (and nearly passes out with the effort of doing so for the second time in less than ten minutes), and realizes that he's wrong- there is something here, hidden behind Shaun and Ezio. Desmond crosses the space quickly, and joins them in looking silently down at the low stone basin in the center of the hole.

It's full of water, clear and clean and utterly unremarkable. "I don't get it," Desmond says. "What are we supposed to do with this?"

Shaun starts to open his mouth, but Edward interrupts.

"Fuck it all," he says, and plunges his hand into the water.

"Edward, no-" but Desmond doesn't get the protest out fast enough, and when he tries to grab Edward to stop him, he ends up with his hand drowned in the water as well.

The whole world seems to freeze, and Desmond opens his mouth to scream- he's not even surprised when he hears an eagle screech instead.

-/-

It feels like he's standing there, trapped in his own little world, for ages. Eons. This hurts as badly as dying had, but in a different way. Little by little, the pain fades away and Desmond becomes aware of the unsettling feeling of being in two bodies of once, of being both human and eagle at the exact same time. And one more thing- of the wetness on his hand, still submerged in the water. Gradually the water seems to harden and change shape around his skin, and then all at once Desmond is back in the real world, panting for breath and clutching something hard and metallic between his fingers.

He looks down, and sees a pendant hanging on a thin black chain. The pendant itself is cut from a single piece of metal, although Desmond doesn't recognize the material. It's black, so dark it seems to suck in some of the light from the surrounding air. It's shaped like an eagle, wings spread in flight, talons outstretched, and when Desmond looks closely he can see indentations of incredible detail all over the bird, marking feathers and the general shape of muscles. The bird's eyes glow with an eerie golden light.

Desmond pulls the chain over his head and lets it settle against his skin as though it belongs there. For a second, nothing happens and then the metal eagle pulses with warmth. Just once, but Desmond feels the heat spread across his chest and then through the rest of his body in an intense wave. He shudders, and looks down to see real, solid skin there, just the same as it had been before he died- he is human and alive and whole again, at least for as long as he keeps wearing the pendant. Because he can still feel the eagle, somewhere inside his mind, waiting to be let loose. And Desmond is glad to realize (without knowing exactly how he knows) that he won't have to give up the complete freedom of flying as an eagle, that the pendant merely gives him the ability to choose between forms. He can take it off anytime he wants, and replace it just as easily. It really is the best possible outcome.

"Well, that worked out well," Edward says, unconsciously echoing Desmond's train of thought. Desmond looks up to see the older man, solid as well but almost choking on tears. There's an identical carved eagle on a chain around his neck, and he looks like he's about to fall over with the shock of being himself again.

Desmond grins at him- any other expression would just be impossible right now- and then looks over at Shaun, who if anything looks a little bored with the entire scene. When he realizes Desmond is looking at him, Shaun forces a halfhearted smile onto his face. "Awesome," he says. "That's great. Sure. Really great."

"What's wrong?" Desmond asks, and Shaun drops the fake smile at once.

"Sorry," he says. "It's just… all this precursor rubbish is starting to get pretty pedestrian." He waves a hand vaguely. "Go to some out of the way place, find some hole in the ground, see something impossible… I'm getting seriously sick of it all."

"Well, it's all over now," Desmond says, a thrill of excitement coursing through him at the words as he remembers that he is human (as he's ever been) again, and Juno is _dead_. "We saved the world, killed the bad guy, and everyone's alive. Our work here is done."

"It's never over," Shaun argues. "There will always be templars to fight. And now we have John to worry about- Altair didn't say anything about _him_ being dead." An unexpected, unrecognizable expression creeps its way across his face, there and gone too quickly for Desmond to give it a name. "And we still don't know what happened to Minerva…"

"We'll find her," Edward says, waving one hand dismissively. "And we'll figure out what to do about John. As for the templars… like you said, they'll always be around. We have time to figure their plans out."

Shaun shrugs, and although he says nothing, his scowl speaks volumes on his opinion of Edward's attitude.

"Let's go get a drink somewhere," Edward goes on, ignoring the scowl. "It's been two hundred years since I last had one, and I would bloody well appreciate changing that as quickly as possible."

"Yes," Desmond agrees, emphatically.

"Or we could catch a plane back out of the country tonight," Shaun insists. "There's a lot of work we need to do."

"Shaun," Desmond says, with as much patience as he can muster. "You're arguing with the retired pirate and the ex-bartender. Do you really think you're winning this one?"

"You can drink on the plane if you're that set on sousing your brains in alcohol the second you get a new body," Shaun says. "And driving me up the wall in the process."

"In flight drinks cost about five times as much as drinks anywhere else," Desmond argues. "And they taste like crap-"

"Desmond!" Shaun cries, voice pitched higher than normal in obvious frustration. "Will you grow up and act like the adult you claim to be for half a second? I realize that you two got what _you _wanted, but it's not all about you. So yes, congratulations, something good just happened to you, and you're allowed to be happy about that. But you do _not _get to act like you're the only ones with problems. The rest of us do too, and we're… I don't know what we are, but we're together in an impossible situation and we need to be able to rely on each other."

"Fine," Desmond says after a long pause. "Shaun, I'm sorry, you're right. It's just been a weird few months, and the two of us have been about as isolated as it's possible to be. I… forgot that there are bigger problems for a second."

Shaun nods, but doesn't look at all mollified. There's a strange light in his eyes that, weirdly enough, reminds Desmond of Altair. It's the look of a parent ready and willing to do whatever it takes to keep his child safe. Something clicks in Desmond's head. "Minerva?" he asks. "Is that what this is about?"

"Possibly."

"But… Shaun, she's not even yours. I just don't get it."

"I do," Edward says quietly. Desmond knows he'll never actually apologize for being insensitive earlier, but his face and tone speak volumes. "I had the same problem with Haytham, when we first met. Because there's just this kid, right? And you've never seen them before in your life, but you look at them, and there's something familiar in their face and they're looking at you with those goddamn _eyes_, like you're supposed to be someone important."

"I don't-" Shaun sighs. "She was never even conscious before Juno took her, so I don't know about that last part. But yea. It's not like I wanted to get attached to her, I know she's about a million years older than me, not some kid. But it's like the harder I try not to think about it, the worse it gets."

Edward suddenly spins around to look at Desmond, glaring at him with mock anger. "And you wanted to spend tonight getting drunk?"

"It was your idea!"

"Shush," Edward says. "We're leaving tonight, to find her."

And Desmond can't possibly argue, not when he sees Shaun struggling to keep the look of relief off his face.


	6. Chapter 6

"How are we supposed to find one kid in a city this size?" Desmond asks. Because this isn't the biggest city he's ever been in, but there's still over a million people and Minerva is just one person.

He's perched on a rooftop tall enough to see much of the surrounding area with his wings folded tight against his back (and _wow _it feels strange to fly as a human again), staring hopelessly around at the city below him.

"There's six of us doing nothing but looking for her." Altair's voice is scratchy through the earpiece Desmond wears- with so many of them in town now, it's the best way for all of them to keep in contact- but still audible. "And Haytham and Rebecca have their eyes open as well."

"There's almost two million people just in the city," Desmond argues. "And there's no reason to assume she's even here."

"Then we'll start with the city and if she's not here, we'll move on."

Desmond sighs. This is not the first day they've spent fruitlessly searching for Minerva, and he highly doubts it will be the last. He sighs, loudly enough to be heard over the earpiece.

"Desmond," Altair says, warningly. "Do I have to remind you that when I found you, you were alone on the streets of a city much larger than this one? I found you, and we'll find Minerva. Now-"

"Hang on."

"Desmond," Altair sighs. "I know how you feel about this, but-"

Only no, Altair doesn't understand, because he can't know how reluctant Desmond is to see Minerva again. He knows they owe her, more than he could ever repay. But… honestly, the woman had always given him the creeps. She's a couple million years old and _glows_. It's freaky, and Desmond really wishes he wouldn't have to see her again. Ever. Only it looks like that isn't going to happen, because…

Because-

"I think I found her," he says.

"Seriously?" Ezio's voice bursts over the com, reminding Desmond that he and Altair aren't the only ones that can hear the conversation.

"I think so," Desmond says. "Hang on. I'm…" he sighs, and goes on reluctantly. "Going to go talk to her."

Desmond falls as far as he can before spreading his wings to slow the descent into something more like a glide. He's still several floors above the ground, far enough that anyone on the streets will barely even notice his shadow as he passes them by. When he passes a low enough building he pulls in his wings, landing in a tight roll and climbing the rest of the way down, pausing only long enough to pull on the hoodie he's been holding onto so that he won't draw unnecessary attention. All this takes barely thirty seconds, but when Desmond looks around in eagle vision again, the golden girl is gone.

He curses to himself and picks a direction at random. She can't have gone far.

Ezio and Altair are shouting at him through his earpiece, and it's enough of a distraction that Desmond pulls it off and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. With his full attention back on finding Minerva, it doesn't take as long as he's expecting to find her. She glows in eagle vision, telling Desmond he has the right person even as the details of her appearance make him hesitate.

This is the first time he's seen Minerva in the full light of day, and she looks... small. Helpless and a little confused, and too human entirely. For the first time, he understands a little of why Shaun and Ezio have been so worried about her. She doesn't look anything like the powerful first civilization woman that had saved Desmond's life less than a year ago. He frowns and hurries after her, trying to ignore the twist of guilt in his stomach for not listening to everyone else when they talked about how much help Minerva needs.

She's walking a little way ahead of him, but slowly, on shaky feet. It looks like she's drunk or ill, and Desmond feels himself speed up almost unconsciously, until he can reach out and put his hand on her shoulder. She jumps, and makes a startled noise like a squeak. Her head whips around to stare at him, eyes wide eyed and scared. She looks like she's going to run, or cry- Desmond can see her eyes start to crinkle up in misery, can hear her breath go short and fast in fear.

"Hey," he says softly, crouching in front of her so they're on the same level. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't-" her voice shakes, and her eyes won't focus directly on him. They flick to his face, then down and away, and back again. She hugs herself and shudders, a body wrenching movement forceful enough to almost knock her off her feet. Her shoulder under Desmond's hand is cold and bony and thin. Silently, he vows to apologize to everyone involved for not taking them seriously. Minerva isn't at all like the person he remembers. Right now she's just a kid and she needs them.

She tries to twist away and Desmond grabs her by the wrist, not hard, just enough to stop her from going. "Minerva," he says. "What-" he frowns. "Do you remember me?" She hesitates, eyes searching his face with a kind of distant concentration. She shakes her head, before flinching back and nodding a little hesitantly.

"I think so," she says. "Um… maybe?" She digs the heel of her hand into her forehead, like she's trying to keep… something from pouring out. Thoughts? Memories? Herself? Desmond is reminded unhappily of his encounters with the bleeding effect, and wonders just what had happened when Juno interrupted Minerva's rebirth. She'd obviously come back too young, but maybe her mind was not as whole as it could have been. "Sorry."

"That's okay," Desmond says. Minerva pulls her arm out of his grasp and takes a hesitant step or two backward. Desmond lets it happen, knowing she has enough space to run now if she wants to, but not willing to risk scaring her.

She shakes her head, brow furrowed in obvious concentration. "The last guy acted nice too," she says. "But he wasn't."

"What last guy?" Desmond asks.

She shrugs, stumbles farther away. "Dunno," she says. "Some guy with different color eyes. He pretended to be nice but he _wasn't_. And you- I don't _know_!"

Desmond stares at her, mouth open, utterly at a loss as to what to do or say next. People pass them without slowing, occasionally looking disapprovingly down at them as Minerva gets more upset. He's still just staring when he hears heavy footsteps running up behind him, and suddenly Ezio is squatting on the ground next to him. The man had obviously flown there- his wings are out of sight but he hasn't bothered to clean the fresh blood from where his scars have reopened and then closed again on his back. Desmond takes half a second to wonder how he'd found them, but maybe it's not that much of a mystery. He'd known the general area where Desmond had started looking for Minerva. It can't have been that hard. Ezio's breathing heavily, and looks first at Desmond and then at Minerva.

"Hello," he says.

And it's amazing, the way her whole face seems to change. She sucks in a startled, surprised breath, and smiles. For a second there's no sign of confusion or worry on her face, just trust and relieved surprise. Then she launches herself at Ezio, who catches her and folds her into his arms. She fits there like she was made for his embrace, and it looks like she has absolutely no plans to move in the foreseeable future.

-/-

"What was that back there?" Desmond asks, when the three of them have gone a few blocks. Ezio is still holding Minerva, carefully and gently like she might break. In the brief time it's taken them to go half a mile, she's managed to fall asleep in his arms. "She wouldn't even talk to me, but she won't let go of you."

Ezio shrugs, but there's a thoughtful expression on his face. "I think there's a reason Shaun and I had to be bonded before we could bring Minerva back. With her, it's like… I don't know. It's not exactly the same as Shaun because with him I just need to be close to him all the time. But with her it's more complicated. I want her to be safe, you know? And then when I see her there's just this… this feeling, like…" he shakes his head, makes a disgusted noise. "It's like she's actually mine, Desmond. What am I supposed to do with that?"

And maybe other people would tell Ezio that all this is _weird_, and that he should get himself as far away from Minerva and Shaun as possible. But this family is different, and so Desmond actually thinks his answer through before saying anything. "Maybe you should just go with it," he says. "You saw her, didn't you? Before you showed up? She's messed up, Ezio. I don't know what happened when she came back but she didn't come back all the way."

"I know," Ezio says softly.

"She's not going to last without you and Shaun," Desmond says. "She'll run again, and it's only a matter of time before someone nasty finds her. I mean, an eight year old girl with a screwed up brain living on the streets doesn't exactly have the best life expectancy. Before you came she was talking about some guy with different colored eyes that was bothering her a while ago-"

He looks over at Ezio in time to see his arms tighten around Minerva and his eyes narrow. "John's heterochromatic," he says. "He and Juno must have been looking for her before Juno died."

"Figures," Desmond says. They turn down a side road and duck into one of the safe houses they've set up over the past few weeks, as they come to realize there's no realistic chance of leaving the city in the near future. This is one of the more barren ones, nothing but a small main room and a couple of skimpy bedrooms. Shaun and Connor are both there when Desmond and Ezio return with Minerva, but it's Shaun that jumps to his feet first. He hesitates as he approaches, then gently puts a hand to her head and brushes her hair away. Ezio says something too quietly for Desmond to hear, and Shaun replies at the same volume.

Minerva stirs a little, looking up at Ezio through squinty, sleepy eyes. He murmurs something and points her at Shaun. She turns her head toward him and smiles. One hand lets go of Ezio long enough to touch Shaun- cautiously, like she's not quite sure he's real.

Desmond crosses to the other side of the room, where Connor is watching the scene unfolding in front of them with a curious expression, head tilted to one side and eyes half narrowed. "I can't decide," he says thoughtfully. "If this is good or bad."

"Good, I think," Desmond says when he's given this some thought. "They all look… I don't know. Happy."

"For now," Connor says. "What happens when she gets back to her old self? That's going to be harder for them now that they've been happy."

"I don't think she _can _go back to who she used to be," Desmond says, ignoring the unusually high amount of cynicism. "Look at her- the person she used to be just isn't there anymore."

Connor makes a noise of exasperation. "Well, in that case she'll fit right in," he says. "It's not like anything that happens with us makes sense anymore."

And his tone as he says this is bitter and just… off. Desmond's been watching Shaun and Ezio with Minerva during this conversation, but he turns sharply now to study Connor instead. He's never been able to read the man well, though, and Connor's face is even more impassive than usual today.

"What's wrong with you?" he demands.

"Nothing," Connor says. "I thought you didn't like her either."

"I'm reconsidering," Desmond says. "What's your excuse?"

Connor grinds his teeth so hard Desmond can actually hear them rubbing together. "Every time we think we have things figured out, something happens to change everything. If it's not time travel or wings, it's reincarnation. Things only ever get less sane and I keep wondering how bad it's going to be six months from now, or a year, and it seems like no one else is even thinking about that."

"Wait, _what_-"

"I'm going out," Connor growls, and he's through the door and gone before Desmond can say another word.


	7. Chapter 7

Minerva wakes up in a cot that smells like mold and is barely wider than she is. It still qualifies as the best bed she can remember ever having, and her first instinct is to close her eyes and burrow deeper into the pile of blankets covering the cot. She doesn't care where she is or what else is going on. Right now, she just wants to be okay for a few more minutes. The voices in her head are quiet, not gone but quiet, and she can actually think.

About what happened yesterday, most importantly. She can remember a man on the street, someone with a face she almost knows but can't put a name to. Seeing him had scared her, not because of anything he'd done but because he's bigger than her and stronger, and he could have done literally anything and she wouldn't have been able to stop him at all. She'd been scared because she knew she couldn't trust him. She couldn't trust anyone.

And then there had been another man, and something in Minerva _knows _him. And it has nothing to do with his face or his name, it's something deep and magnetic that practically propels her into his arms. Because he can- and he will- keep her safe, she knows this with a certainty she has never felt before. When he holds her, even the voices seem a little quieter.

Later, there is a second man. He has the same feeling of protection and safety as the first man, and Minerva is- is _happy_. She's happy for the first time in her own memory, and then gets to fall asleep without worrying about what might happen during the night. It's very nearly too much to believe, and in the end that's what drives her out of bed. She wraps one of the blankets around her shoulders and slips through the door into a room she dimly remembers from yesterday.

There are no windows in this room- there hadn't been any in the room where she'd woken up, either- but the room has a middle of the night stillness that makes Minerva move through it on silent, wary feet. There's no sign of either of the men she'd come to see, and their absence feels like a hand around her throat. It makes breathing a struggle and the whole world seem to shatter. She stumbles backward until her back hits a wall with a soft thud, and she slides down it to the floor, burying her face in her blanket and trying not to cry.

Time slips away, and she doesn't know how long it is before she hears a door open and close, and footsteps cross the room to stop just in front of her. She peeks over the edge of her blanket and there are no words for her relief when she sees one of the men from yesterday. This is the skinny one with the glasses and the funny accent.

"I thought you left," she says, in a voice that's equal parts whiny and scared.

"What?" he frowns. "No. Just in the other room."

She nods but doesn't look at him.

"Do you want to…" he hesitates, an uncertain look on his face. "Do you want to go back to bed?"

Alone? "No," Minerva mumbles.

"Well that's- that's fine too," the man wedges himself between Minerva and the corner of the wall. "Do you want to talk, then?"

"Sure."

"Okay then. I guess we'll start with introductions, since we didn't get a chance to talk last night." She hadn't said a single word, too overwhelmed with the sudden changes to speak. "I'm Shaun."

"…Minerva."

"Good," Shaun says. "This is good, yea."

"Who are you?" Minerva asks. "How do I know you?" And then- "Why don't I know me?"

"It's complicated," Shaun says. "You kind of had an accident. Um… what do you remember?"

"Nothing," Minerva says. "I can't remember because the voices, there's just…" She rubs at her tired eyes with one hand, and jumps a little as Shaun wraps his arm around her shoulders. "It's like I can feel everyone around me," she mumbles. The voices are better now she's off the streets, a dull, easy to ignore whisper instead of a roar. "Like their thoughts are in my head and I can't remember anything and I can't even think and I just want to be _better_. I don't know what's going on."

She risks a glance up at Shaun. The man's face is like an open book, and even upset and scared like she is now, Minerva can read the emotions chasing each other across his face. "Minerva…"

"Please don't lie to me," she says. "Please. I don't care how bad the truth is, I just want to know."

"Okay," Shaun says. "Well, I don't know everything that's going on, but it definitely stated a very long time ago. I mean like, thousands and thousands of years."

"What happened then?"

"You were born," Shaun says, and Minerva actually feels her mouth drop open in surprise.

"I'm not that old," she protests.

Shaun shrugs. "It's complicated. A lot of stuff happened, the world almost ended twice, and you were kind of dead for a lot of it."

_"Dead-"_

"We- me and Ezio- we tried to bring you back, but something went wrong. You didn't come back all the way, and you didn't come back right, and that's our fault. I'm sorry."

"What?" Minerva shakes her head. "How- what about the voices? Did you do that to me too?"

"No," Shaun says. "I mean, I don't think so. I could be wrong but… listen, I may have glossed over some details."

"Like?"

"Like before we brought you back, you… weren't exactly human. What you were was something different. We call them- you- precursors. No one knows what you called yourselves. But we _do _know that they were on a completely different level than us. There are some people around today that have bits and pieces of precursor DNA and just that is enough to give them what we call eagle vision. It's… sort of a way of knowing things about people you shouldn't be able to know. Who your enemies are, who your friends are, things like that. I don't think it's a stretch to assume precursors had even _more_ insight into humanity. Probably enough to explain the voices you're hearing. You're literally hearing the thoughts of every person you happen to pass, and you're human now. Your brain just can't deal with that much information at once."

Shaun's voice gets more confident the longer he goes on, taking on the tone of a lecturing professor. But Minerva only gets more scared the longer he goes on. "I don't know what that means," she says, voice breaking. Because she can understand what he's saying, but she can't make herself believe he's talking about her. "I don't want that to be me!" she says. "I just want to be normal."

Shaun hesitates, then pulls away a little and takes off his shirt. "Trust me," he says. "No one here is normal. And it's not all bad."

"What are you doing?" Minerva asks, momentarily distracted from her earlier concern.

"Watch," Shaun says, and suddenly his back breaks open and there's blood and pus all over his skin, and there are wings there, so close to Minerva that she can feel the air in front of her stirring as they move. She reaches hesitantly toward them, then checks herself and glances at Shaun. "It's okay," he says, and Minerva leans forward to feel the softness of his feathers beneath her fingers.

"Where did you get these?" she breathes, awestruck. "Shaun?"

"Also a long story," Shaun says. "But I think it would be fair to say you gave them to me."

-/-

There are four people staying in the little building- safe house, they call it- where Minerva unexpectedly finds herself. Or five, now that Minerva has joined them. For the first couple days she sticks close to Shaun, and then to Ezio (the other man she finds herself inexplicably but inarguably trusting). But they can't always be around, and so when they are out in the city doing she doesn't know what, Minerva is left with the other two.

Desmond is okay. He's obviously a little uncomfortable with her, and Minerva isn't entirely sure why. Still, after their first meeting on the street he's gone out of his way to be as nice as possible. A little stiff, sometimes, but he wasn't bad. He'd taught her a card game called poker that made Shaun yell at him for like an hour straight about teaching children to gamble.

But the other one, Connor, worried her. It wasn't like he ever said or did anything mean. Actually, he rarely spoke to her at all. After the first few days, when he is surly and angry enough to worry not only Minerva but the others as well, he goes quiet and sort of… withdraws. He's still there, but he's not really engaged, and Minerva can tell he doesn't want to be there anymore.

One day, when Connor is out, Minerva takes advantage of his absence to ask Ezio about it. He's working on something at the folding table on the edge of the main room, wearing a face like he'd rather be doing anything that's not paperwork, but Minerva hesitates to interrupt anyway. She's still not exactly sure where she fits with this half insane group, and she doesn't want to risk getting anyone mad at her.

But Ezio sees her standing there and beckons her closer, a summons that Minerva obeys gratefully, climbing onto a chair across the table from him and fidgeting a little. "What's wrong with Connor?" she blurts.

"Whoa," Ezio says, raising his eyebrows. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that."

"Why not?" Minerva asks. "Come on, what's wrong?"

"It's complicated."

"Ezio!" Minerva whines, and to her frustration he chuckles. "Please? Tell me?"

"There's nothing wrong with Connor," Ezio says.

"But he's all… I don't know. Sad."

Ezio considers this for a few seconds, and Minerva does her best to look pitiful while he thinks. "Fine," he says. "But listen, there really isn't anything wrong with Connor. He's just tired."

"So he should take a nap."

"Not that kind of tired," Ezio corrects gently. "He's a… deeper kind of tired, because he's spent a lot of time living a very strange life, and he just doesn't want to keep going like that anymore. Connor's the kind of guy that would be happier in the middle of some forest somewhere than in a city surrounded by complicated stuff like this."

"Why?" Minerva asks.

"Because that's just how he is," Ezio says.

"Oh. Is he going to leave?"

"Of course not," Ezio says, but he suddenly isn't looking at her. "We're still family, no matter what else happens. That's important."

Minerva nods and drops out of her chair, retreating to the other side of the room to think this over in silence. She likes the way Ezio talks about family, and she wants very much to be part of that. To have a family would be… it just sounds good. Safe. And even though Minerva is here now, even though they've been nice enough to take her in (despite the apparently complicated past between them all that she still doesn't completely understand), she doesn't think she can count herself as part of their family.

It doesn't make sense to her that Connor would want to leave all that, but he clearly does. He's restless, unhappy in the city, and obviously eager to get moving again. But there's nowhere to go and nothing to do. Every time she sees him, he looks a little sadder, a little emptier inside. When he disappears in the middle of the night a couple weeks after Minerva's conversation with Ezio, she's not surprised at all.

**-/-**

**I wish I knew why Connor is causing so many problems here. Sometimes characters just decide to do things and then suddenly they're running off in the middle of the night and I don't know why.**

**...hashtag writer problems.**


	8. Chapter 8

Rebecca's the one that takes the call from Connor.

When he vanishes, their entire group descends into an amazingly organized kind of chaos. They scour the city and the surrounding area, looking for any sign of where he could have gone. But there's nothing, not so much as a single lead. Even Haytham goes, calling in sick and abandoning his work at Abstergo to search for Connor.

But he doesn't find anything, either. He stays out until long after dark, leaving Rebecca alone to wait and worry inside his too quiet apartment, alone apart from Minerva. With the others busy looking for Connor, she's been assigned the task of looking after the girl. So far that's been easy- Rebecca's spent barely any time at all with her, but Minerva is an easy charge. She spends most of the day staring out the window with an absentminded expression, and Rebecca doesn't have the energy to worry about whether that's good or bad.

She's worried about Connor for disappearing, about Haytham for the look on his face when he went out that morning. She's just worried in general, and worry is the kind of emotion that sucks and drains energy. It leaves her listless all day, until finally the landline- because Haytham is the kind of old fashioned guy that actually has one of those, _by choice_- rings.

Minerva looks up from her place at the window. "Phone," she says (her first word since Ezio dropped her off that morning), but Rebecca is already running for it.

"Got it," she says, grabbing the phone off the cradle. "Hello?"

"Rebecca?" Connor's voice sounds scratchy through the speaker, like he's somewhere without great reception. "I wasn't expecting- I'm looking for Haytham."

"He's out," Rebecca says. "Looking for you. Where are you?"

"Doesn't matter," Connor says.

"But-"

"I'm not coming back," Connor tells her, and only the absolute certainty in his voice keeps Rebecca from arguing. "I'm sorry, I just can't… Look, Juno's already dead, everyone's alive and relatively human, there's no loose ends left up there you need my help to tie up. I just need to leave for a while. I need to go and be by myself and figure things out."

"But…" Rebecca gropes for an argument that will mean something to him. "What about Haytham?" she asks. "You didn't- oh." She frowns. "You called to say goodbye."

"Yea," Connor says. "But listen, you can pass a message along, right?"

"Sure," says Rebecca. "I think it would be better if you did that yourself, though."

Connor ignores her. "Tell him…" but he hesitates. "I don't know. Tell him goodbye, I guess."

"Connor-"

"And… listen, don't leave him, okay?"

"I wasn't planning to," Rebecca says, barely resisting the urge to point out that Connor is walking out _at that very moment_.

"You're good for him," Connor says. "And he's got Edward back now, too. He'll be fine."

"Connor!" Rebecca makes a strangled noise of frustration. "If you're so worried about him, don't leave!"

The click in her ear is the only goodbye Rebecca gets. She swears colorfully and hits redial, but the phone goes straight to voicemail. She throws it across the room, onto the bed, and starts thinking about how she's going to spin this to the others- Connor can be rash when he wants to but this is a new level.

"Rebecca?"

She feels a twinge of guilt at the sound of Minerva's voice behind her, and winces at some of the less appropriate words she'd just used. It's hard getting used to having a kid around. "Don't ever repeat that around Ezio," she says. "He will kick my ass for teaching you."

Minerva nods solemnly, and then (to Rebecca's total horror) bursts into tears. "Whoa!" she says, making vague gestures that are meant to be comforting but mostly look like flapping bird wings. "Don't… don't cry? Please."

But Minerva barely seems to be listening, just goes on crying in the way only children can- quietly, but with a passion that suggests nothing will ever be right again. Rebecca waits out the worst of the tears, then picks Minerva up and sits her on Haytham's bed. She's not particularly strong, but Minerva is feather light and doesn't put up a fight when Rebecca plants herself next to her.

"What's the matter?" Rebecca asks. "Huh?"

"Connor-" Minerva sniffs, and rubs a hand across her nose. Rebecca passes her a tissue without saying anything, and after an enthusiastic blow, Minerva goes on. "He left because I'm here, didn't he?"

"What?" Rebecca shakes her head. "No. Why would you think that?"

"Ezio told me he's tired of weird," Minerva says. "I'm weird, I'm a- a _freak_, aren't I? I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't even be alive and I definitely shouldn't be alive like this." She gestures to her child's body with one hand, while the other one clenches into a fist. "Ever since I showed up, he's been sad. And now he's gone."

"No, sweetie, no…" Rebecca shakes her head. "First of all, you're not a freak. Don't say that. Just don't. There's nothing wrong with not remembering who you were, and there's nothing wrong with being a kid. Life is strange, and you have to live with what you have. And with whom you are."

"But-"

"And Connor absolutely did not leave because you're here," Rebecca adds. "He left because of an entire lifetime of weird. Even if you were the straw that broke the camel's back- and I'm not saying you were- it has more to do with everything that happened before you came than anything you did."

Minerva looks doubtful, so Rebecca goes on. "All people are complicated," she says. "Connor included. Maybe Connor especially. We just need to give him some time."

"Okay," Minerva mumbles, nodding a little. She doesn't look entirely convinced, but Rebecca takes it as a good sign that she announces she's hungry a few minutes later. That only leaves the problem of telling Haytham about Connor's phone call when he comes back.

-/-

"He called last night."

"What?" It's just after dawn, and Haytham is dragging himself through the apartment door, wearing a dejected expression, like someone's just run over his dog. At her words, though, something like cautious hope lights up his face. That makes Rebecca's next words far more difficult.

"He's not coming back," she says. "Not for a while, anyway." She quickly summarizes what Connor had said, leaving out only what Connor had said about her. When she finishes, Haytham sighs. She's expecting a stream of questions, but Haytham only asks one.

"How did he sound?"

Rebecca considers this for a moment before answering. "Certain," she says. "He's decided what to do and he's not going to change his mind."

"Good," Haytham says, and that seems to be it. He pulls off a jacket and tosses his key onto the table by the door, like he's coming home from any normal day at work. Rebecca turns away so he won't see her smiling. In hindsight, she doesn't know why she's surprised by this apparent lack of interest- Haytham has never been concerned with dramatics, so as long as Connor is satisfied with his choice, there's no reason for Haytham to be concerned.

"Did you eat already?" he asks.

"Ages ago," Rebecca says. "We got hungry so I ordered a pizza."

"'We'," Haytham repeats, blankly, and Rebecca gestures at where Minerva has fallen asleep, curled into a tight ball on Haytham's bed. She's small enough to barely make a lump under the blankets, and Rebecca's not surprised that Haytham hadn't seen her on his way in. "Oh. Shaun and Ezio haven't come to pick her up yet?"

"Shaun called at eleven," Rebecca says. "But she was already asleep so I told him to come back in the morning."

"Good," Haytham says, and after a minute of apparent thought he goes on in a more considering tone. "You know, if we're talking about people that should get out of the city, I'd think she should."

"Minerva?"

He nods. "I mean, forget her past, right now she's a normal kid stuck in a pretty terrible situation. She'd be happier away from all this."

"I agree," Rebecca says. "But that would mean pulling Ezio and Shaun out of the city too."

"They'd do it for her," Haytham says.

They don't talk much for the rest of that night- Minerva takes up so little space that Haytham is able to squeeze into bed next to her and fall asleep. Rebecca hasn't slept much either, but she's been stuck in the apartment all day and she's used to going all night without sleep. She makes herself a coffee- if she's not going to get any sleep she at least needs the caffeine- and turns to look out the window.

What Haytham had said about giving Minerva a chance at a normal life has her thinking. There's really no reason any of them need to stay in Montreal any longer. After all, when Rebecca had first met Desmond she'd thought he was one of the most normal guys in school. The fact that his entire family was made up of winged time travelers that moonlighted as assassins had only come up years later, and honestly hadn't seemed to interfere with his childhood in any way.

They could do that. All of them. Juno's dead and gone, they can work out of anywhere in the world. Rebecca can imagine that life. She can imagine having a house somewhere, waking up every morning in the bed next to Haytham. Maybe they could get a dog (she's always wanted a dog). The others would live nearby, Minerva would be able to be a normal kid with friends and without stressors like the ones she has here.

It's a pipe dream. It's obviously ridiculous and fed by her sleep starved brain and the cheap coffee, but somehow Rebecca ends up on her laptop, looking at real estate listings anyway. She knows it's ridiculous, but it's not until ages later, when she realizes Haytham has woken up and is looking over her shoulder, that she figures out that this can be both ridiculous and something she _really wants_ at the same time.

She starts to explain. "We could-"

Haytham puts his hand on hers, and she lets her fingers curl around his palm. "We should."

-/-

Somehow that idle thought turns into an actual plan. No one really wants to stay in this city any longer than they have to, and over the next few weeks they start to leave, headed back to the middle of nowhere town where all this had started, where both Rebecca and Desmond had grown up.

Shaun and Ezio go first, with Minerva. Rebecca's there the day they leave, watching as Minerva swings back and forth between excitement and nerves. She's clearly happy to be leaving the city, but just as obviously worried about the voices she still hears in her head. But Rebecca isn't worried, because if there's any group of people that can make the impossible happen, it's this one right here. Minerva will get better. She will.

After that, Altair, Desmond, and Edward disappear. They have plans- big plans, from what Rebecca understands. Altair had been a _shockingly_ successful author at one point in his life, and as much as he pretends to be embarrassed every time Shaun goes borderline fanboy on him, he obviously enjoyed it and wouldn't mind going back. Desmond had been about half an hour away from a degree in animal sciences before getting sucked into assassin business, and Edward- well, as far as Rebecca can tell, he's mostly interested in experiencing everything the twenty first century has to offer.

That leaves Haytham and Rebecca.

Their plans take longer to finalize, because they're not just relocating, they're also trying to figure out where they are as a couple. Until now, they've been sort of casually sharing Haytham's apartment, Rebecca coming and going as she needs to, neither of them willing to make that next step. Getting a place together would be… big.

But after days of dancing around the subject, Haytham comes home with a dog. It's a basset hound, barely out of puppyhood, adorable and perfect and it comes straight to Rebecca when she calls. She looks up at Haytham and she's smiling. "I've always wanted a dog," she says. "But my dad's allergic, he never let me have one. Then I was at college and there were rules and then I was an assassin and it seemed like a terrible idea-"

"Well, he's all yours," Haytham says. "I thought… you might want some company when you move out of the city."

And suddenly the smile is gone. Rebecca is already crouched on the floor, looking over the dog. But now she looks up at Haytham, noticing for the first time that he looks as grim as she's ever seen him. "You're not coming with," she says.

"Becca…" he crouches down so that they're on the same level, with only the dog between them. "I would if I could. I want to. But the thing about Abstergo is they don't let people go. And maybe we should have seen this coming when I went undercover, but we didn't. As soon as I started making noises like I wanted to leave, they clamped down. I'm under surveillance almost all the time now, there's no way I can leave without leading them straight to the others. It's better that you go alone."

"You-" she wants to laugh, almost. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?" she asks. "That's why you brought the dog."

"Yes," Haytham admits. "I can't leave, and I can't ask you to wait."

"How long are you going to stay?" she asks. "I _can_ wait, I can-"

"It might be months," Haytham says. "Years. If I'm not careful about the way I leave, it might kill us all."

"Then I will wait months," Rebecca says. She's thinking about what it means to have someone there when she need him, about how _right _things feel with Haytham, about what Connor had said about her being good for him. Or maybe she's not thinking at all, because it's very difficult to think clearly over the rising pit in her stomach. "Or years."

She leans over the dog and catches Haytham before he can move away. The kiss that follows is intense, desperate and breathless, and long enough for Rebecca to come up with a half-baked plan. When Haytham eventually pulls away, she starts talking before he has a chance to say a word. "I _will _wait," she says. "I promise. And if- if you're willing, I'll prove it to you."

"How?"

She grins, trying to ignore the way she's shaking with nerves. "By doing something incredibly stupid," she says. "Let's get married."

**-/-**

**I was hoping to have a holiday themed chapter up for today, but in the past week I've turned twenty one, gotten sick, and been roped into doing the gift wrapping for half my family. Things happened. I got busy (which probably explains the quality of the past couple chapters). So I guess the best I can do is 'Merry Christmas' for those of you that celebrate.**


	9. Chapter 9

"I like Christmas," Minerva informs Desmond seriously, five days before the holiday. "Except everyone's busy all the time."

"What?" Desmond tears his eyes away from the crowded mall around them. "Yea, I guess so. But that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?"

"I guess."

"How are the voices?"

She shrugs, which Desmond takes as an indication that she's doing okay. Ever since the group (minus Haytham) moved out of Montreal, they've been doing their best to get Minerva accustomed to large crowds and groups of people. Slowly but surely, working her way up from groups of five or six, she's learning to ignore the constant steam of other peoples' thoughts pouring into her head. The largest mall in the area on the last Friday before Christmas is her latest test, and she's passing with flying colors.

"What's wrong?" Minerva asks, and Desmond mentally sighs at her inconvenient observational skills.

"Nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing," she says. "You're spacing out."

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of his death, but Desmond doesn't say that. He'd planned to spend the day in the air, flying to keep his mind off the impending anniversary. If anniversary is the right word for the day he'd essentially died. Instead, he's on babysitting duty. And while normally that wouldn't be a problem, because he likes Minerva, this just… isn't a good time.

"Desmond…" her voice takes on a whiny, grating tone that drills right through his skull and sets it to throbbing.

"Not now, Min," he snaps, and she goes quiet and looks down at her feet.

"Sorry," Desmond says when he's taken a couple deep breaths and calmed down. "Just… I used to really like this time of year." And then he'd died.

"Well maybe you'll like it again?" Minerva asks. "It's going to be a good Christmas. We're going to have dinner- Ezio's going to _cook_."

Desmond raises an eyebrow, surprised enough to be momentarily distracted from his bad mood. Most holidays, Ezio spends a ridiculous amount of time and effort avoiding work of any kind, but the few times Desmond can remember Ezio cooking it had been both under duress and surprisingly talented. "Really?" he says. "Willingly?"

"Yea," Minerva says.

"Wow," Desmond says. "He must really like you." He says it mostly because he knows it will make her smile, and he still feels bad for snapping earlier. But it's honestly true- Ezio has never been good at talking about his emotions. He prefers actions over words, and that's exactly what this is.

"And Haytham's coming," Minerva goes on. "Rebecca called last night and said he's going to be able to get away for a couple days. It's going to be the whole family."

"Cool," Desmond says.

"Yea." Minerva nodded enthusiastically. "Haytham, and your dad, and-"

"Wait, what? Altair's always in town, he's not coming in specifically for Christmas."

"You don't know," Minerva says.

"Know what?"

"Um… your actual, like, birth dad." She suddenly looks like she wants to make herself as small as possible and never be seen again. "He's coming to visit for the holidays. Shaun told me, I thought he'd told you, too."

"He did not," Desmond says. "But he's going to tell me all about it." Because this is not okay, he doesn't want to see William Miles and have to go through the whole explanation of why he's still alive and how. "Come on, get your coat. I'm taking you home."

Minerva doesn't argue, and within half an hour they're outside the house where Shaun, Ezio, and Minerva have been living for the past couple months. It's still only half unpacked, with most of Ezio's stuff in boxes or scattered around in stacks and piles. Shaun, who is undeniably the more organized one of the pair, has been unpacked since the day after they moved in. And Minerva has barely any stuff at all.

Still, Ezio makes enough mess for all of them, so walking through the house is a challenge. Minerva hops over boxes and swerves around others with the practiced ease of someone that has to do this every day, while Desmond struggles along behind. "How do you people live here?" he complains.

"Mostly by flying over all the rubbish," Shaun calls from the next room. "Because God forbid Ezio ever puts anything away."

"Shaun," Desmond says, turning around to look at him and frowning. "We need to talk about my father."

"Ah," Shaun says, visibly deflating at the words. "So you found out about that."

"Why did you keep it a secret in the first place?" Desmond demands.

"Because- I don't know." Shaun scowls. "He called, said he had some questions. I didn't know what to tell him about you so I kind of told him to come to Christmas dinner."

"Are you insane?" Desmond demands. "Are you actually- you were going to just let everyone show up on Christmas so my dad can find out I'm still alive and even less human than before-" he reflexively touches the chain around his neck, the charm that keeps him locked into human form. "Is this what your idea of a good holiday is?"

"Yes, actually," Shaun says. "You should have seen what Christmases were like for me growing up. There was this one year when my aunt punched out my brother in law over the pudding-" he shakes his head. "Absolute disaster. And anyway, your dad deserves to know you're alive, and you obviously don't have any plans about telling him."

But Desmond's barely listening. He's too concerned with the growing realization that there is no way he's getting out of this. "You are a terrible person, Shaun," he says.

Shaun only nods, slowly, like he's heard this before. "I know," he says.

-/-

Christmas starts early in the morning for Desmond- he never actually manages to get to sleep, just stares up at the ceiling like it's going to give him a way out of seeing his father that afternoon. Finally, he gives up trying to sleep and crawls out of bed, yawning and mumbling halfhearted complaints to himself.

After only a couple minutes of this, Edward comes in to complain about the noise and find out what's wrong. He looks like _he's _had some sleep, at least- he looks more disheveled than he does when he's fully awake, his hair a mess and half the feathers in his wings sticking in the wrong directions. And Desmond can't help but laugh a little because he's seen _this _before.

It's weird, being back in the town (and the house and the _bedroom_) where he grew up. He's changed so much but the place is exactly the same. It looks like his room hasn't changed at all since he left home at eighteen. There had been plenty of times in high school when he hadn't been able to sleep- when he'd had problems with homework or friends or whatever else had seemed so important all those years ago- only back then, it had been Connor or Ezio that had come wandering in to tell him to keep it down and occasionally dispense some surprisingly solid advice.

Some things just don't change.

This morning, Edward just arches an eyebrow and waits for Desmond to explain what has him so upset. Which Desmond does, willingly. As long as the man's here, he's going to take the opportunity to rant.

"My dad's coming today," he says. "My actual birth father."

"I know," Connor says. "And? You seemed to be getting along well enough in New York."

"Yea," Desmond says. "When I was pretty sure I was going to die. It's a lot harder to deal with him now that I know I'm going to live. I mean-" he makes a throttling gesture. "He's an impossible person to live with!"

Edward shrugs, annoyingly unconcerned. "So? He's your father. I'm sure he doesn't actually _want_ to hurt you."

"So he's not going out of his way to be a horrible person," Desmond says blandly. "It just comes naturally. That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Yes," Edward says. "Whether or not you like him, he's your father, you're capable of dealing with him like an adult, so suck it up and deal."

Desmond is about to argue, until finally his brain catches up with what he's just heard. Because Edward sounds pissed off and unhappy, and that's setting off alarm bells in Desmond's head. "What's wrong with you?" he asks.

Edward opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times, obviously debating what to say. "Look," he says at last. "You want to talk about family issues? Because mine's coming in for the holidays too, and I'm fairly convinced he's keeping secrets."

"What," Desmond says. "You mean Haytham?"

Edward nods. "He and Rebecca have been…" he weighs his words carefully. "Shifty. They've been shifty since we all moved out here. I don't want to talk to Rebecca about it because I don't know her that well, but Haytham- when he gets down here I need to confront him."

"And you're nervous?" Desmond snorts. "Come on, you got into an argument with that guy at the bar yesterday because he said he didn't like the color or your shoes. You get a kick out of confronting people."

"Not… people that _matter_," Edward manages through gritted teeth. "Do you even know- Desmond, you were a bird for months, I was one for _years_. Years when I thought I would never get the chance to talk to anyone again. So when I fight with the guy at the bar, or the guy that delivers the pizza, or that woman with the crying children at the grocery store- that's nothing but talk. Because I need to talk, because I-" He makes a face. "I'm still terrified that I'll wake up and being human again will just be a dream."

"But-"

"It's just talk," Edward says. "Empty talk that doesn't matter. Haytham- all of you- deserve more."

And Desmond wants nothing to do with that one, with whatever complicated issues he's dealing with, but he's spent enough time alone with Edward now to recognize when the other man is genuinely upset, and when he's just making noise for the sake of it. This is Edward being genuinely upset.

"I'll go with you," he offers. "When you talk to Haytham. If you want."

"Yes," Edward says. "Yes that would be great."

Desmond mentally goes through a list of all the reasons this is a terrible decision, and decides that this still sounds better than dealing with his father. "Awesome," he says. "Let me know when you're ready."

-/-

Over the next few hours, people start to trickle into the house bearing food and gifts, wrapped with varying degrees of effort and skill. Shaun and Minerva show up first, Shaun looking like he'd been dragged out of bed way too early in the morning and Minerva looking considerably more excited.

"Ezio's coming later," Shaun explained, without being asked. "Apparently he has the superpower of being able to sleep through loud children, and he's still getting ready."

"That sounds like a helpful superpower," Desmond says, and he can't help grinning at Shaun's less than happy scowl.

"Yea," he grumbles. "I wish I had it. It's definitely one of those things I wish Ezio had passed onto me."

"How's that been going, lately?" Desmond asks. "The whole… freaky connection thing?"

"I sort of wish you'd call it something else, for starters," Shaun says.

"It's accurate."

"But annoying," Shaun say. "But it's been going a little better, since moving out here with Minerva, I guess. She gives us something to focus on other than each other and that gives us a little breathing room. We-"

The doorbell rings, and Altair yells from the kitchen for someone else to get the door while he struggles with the stove. Unlike Ezio, Altair does not have hidden cooking talents, and the entire day so far has been a struggle for him. Desmond's mostly tried to keep out of the way, while Edward apparently thinks it's the funniest thing he's seen in years.

Desmond ducks away from Shaun to open the door. He swerves around Minerva, sidles quickly past the kitchen door (but not so quickly that he can't hear some of the more descriptive words Edward has for Altair's attempts at Christmas dinner. Then he gets to the door, and opens it, and all the good feelings of the day vanish entirely because he'd known that William Miles was coming today, but he hadn't actually _known_ it until he found himself standing face to face with the man on the doorstep.

"Desmond," William says, voice flat and perfectly devoid of emotion. "You do have a habit of turning up in unexpected places. I don't even know why I'm surprised."

"Probably because I'm supposed to be dead," Desmond says, in a voice so casual he manages to surprise himself. "And… I'm not."

"Hmm," William says, and although he doesn't smile his face twists up in a way that's pretty close. "That's good."

He moves past Desmond, patting him absentmindedly on the shoulder as he passes. Desmond breathes out a sigh of relief and for half a second he thinks that's going to be all William has to say on the subject. Then William half turns and calls over his shoulder- "Ever consider telling me you're alive? A phone call would have been good enough." And Desmond grins and rolls his eyes because this is exactly the father he remembers and that means everything's okay. Or as okay as things ever get with his birth father, anyway.

Across the room, Altair is giving Desmond a _look_ that means he should have said or done something more to make up for lying to his father. Only Desmond has no idea what that's supposed to be- he doesn't know how to make up for the fact that he let the man keep thinking he was dead even after everyone else knew. So instead he sort of ducks down and tries to stay out of sight.

Luckily for him, Rebecca shows up not long after that, the dog Hitch at her heels and a brighter than usual smile on her face. She's a good distraction, but her arrival also reminds Desmond about the conversation he'd had with Edward that morning. While the dog runs straight through the house like a thing gone mad, sniffing at everyone and _woofing _excitedly, Desmond manages to corner Rebecca.

"Where's Haytham?" he asks, in a voice that- judging by her skeptical look- is not nearly as casual as he wants it to be. "I just- I thought he was supposed to be coming with you."

"He got stuck in traffic," Rebecca says. "But he should be here soon. Why?"

"No reason," Desmond says.

"Desmond, come on."

"Fine." Desmond raises his hands in mock surrender. "Edward kind of wants to have it out with him because he thinks the two of you have been keeping secrets."

"Oh!" Rebecca's face turns red and Desmond narrows his eyes.

"You are keeping secrets!" he hisses, dropping his voice just a bit. "I thought Edward was just overreacting but-"

"Desmond!" She shushes him farther. "I don't want everyone to find out like this. Besides, you've kept your own share of secrets."

"At least tell me if it's something bad," Desmond says. "You've been shifty for months, ever since you moved out here." The dog wanders into Desmond's field of vision and he goes on. "Ever since you left Haytham behind and got Hitch-" He stops, mouth working without sound, and then grabs Rebecca by the arm and drags her upstairs, out of earshot of the others.

"Got Hitch," he repeats, when they're safely alone. "_Got hitched_? You got married and named your dog after a bad pun?"

He looks at her, waiting for her to deny his accusation. Because of course she's going to deny it, there's no possible way-

"Yea," Rebecca says. "Sounds about right."

"How did- what- you didn't- whose idea was that?"

"Technically I proposed," Rebecca says. "Although it wasn't really much of a proposal. And the pun was absolutely Haytham's idea."

"Oh," Desmond says in a voice that sounds distant in his own ears. Then he takes a couple of seconds to process this, because Rebecca and Haytham being secretly married is one of those revelations that deserves a bit of quiet contemplation. Then he steps forward and folds a very surprised Rebecca into a tight hug. "Well then, welcome to the family."

"Thanks."

"And when everyone else finds out, and wants to know why you didn't tell anyone?" Desmond pats her on the back and draws away before heading back downstairs. "I knew absolutely nothing about this, and you're on your own."


	10. Chapter 10

Christmas went on all day and well into the night. Minerva managed to stay awake until a little after ten, but by then she's running on fumes and half asleep, camped out on the foot of the stairs next to Hitch. The dog is as tired as she is, curled up with his nose tucked under his tail, eyes shut and breathing deeply. Minerva puts her chin on her hands and tries not to nod off. It's hard though, even with the sporadic bursts of argument coming from the others.

Minerva hasn't been paying any particular attention to the details- as far as she can tell, most of it is because Haytham and Rebecca are married now, but that sounds like a good thing to her. They obviously like each other a lot, and Minerva can't figure out what the downside is. And, just to shake it up, occasionally Desmond and his father will start shooting insults at each other. None of it (...hardly any of it...) is mean spirited, not really. Just tense. Minerva's pretty sure it'll all work itself out in the end, it's just taking an awfully long time to get there.

By this point, it's started to blur together and Minerva is tired enough to drop off despite the ongoing noise. In fact, it's only the silence that wakes her up- she's gotten used to the dull roar of conversation and argument, so when it stops she comes awake with a start.

And freaks out, just a little bit, because the entire world has stopped moving.

She stands, trembling a little, sick with the fear and confusion of the sight in front of her. Everything has just stopped, like the world is on pause, and there's a dull golden glow in the air that's so thick Minerva imagines she can taste it in her mouth when she breathes, feel it all the way down to her lungs.

But before she can even start to think of what to do or say, something seems to suck the heavy light out of the air and then the world jolts forward and starts moving again. Minerva lets out a terrified little scream that dissolves into sobs, and runs toward Ezio (who happens to be closer than Shaun) so fast she trips and falls flat on her face.

The room goes quiet for a second time, but this time it's from surprise rather than anything supernatural. Ezio holds her tight, obviously unsure what else to do. "What's wrong?" he asks, when Minerva is back on her feet and a little calmer. Only she doesn't understand what she's just seen, and she doesn't have the words to describe the way it had felt to see everything just… stop. Her mind is buzzing, and it makes Minerva tremble almost uncontrollably.

In the end, Ezio carries her upstairs to Desmond's room, empty for the moment, and lies her down on the unmade bed. Minerva covers her face with her arms and rolls over to face the wall. After maybe half a minute, she hears Shaun come up the stairs and Ezio go into the hallway to meet him. Their voices are quiet, but when Minerva closes her eyes and listens hard, she can just about hear them.

"What's wrong with her?" Shaun asks. "Did she say anything?"

"Nothing," Ezio says. "I have no idea."

Shaun makes a thoughtful noise. "It could be mental, I guess. I'm still not sure what went wrong when we brought her back, this could be a delayed side effect of that."

"I hope not," Ezio says. And there's more after that, but Minerva drifts into an uncomfortable sleep, just because it's easier than staying up and _thinking _right now.

-/-

She has a nightmare almost as soon as she falls asleep. They're intense and vivid and terrifying, although it's more of a feeling than anything solid. She's falling- she's being stabbed, over and over- she's-

A hand grabs her by the forearm and pulls her away, out of the nightmares and into… somewhere else. It's hard to say exactly where that somewhere is, because it's nothing but a perfectly flat ground, ground she can feel but not see because there's a thick fog all around her. It covers the ground, the distant walls, anything else that might have been there.

It also echoes, Minerva quickly realizes. There are footsteps coming from… somewhere, but the fog and the echo make it seem like it's coming from every direction at once. Minerva stands her ground, hands curled into fists as though she expects to be able to fight off whomever (or _whatever_, her traitorous mind suggests) is coming.

But the figure that finally emerges from the fog is a woman, apparently unremarkable in every way. Except for her eyes. Those are dark and mean and they know something. The woman watches Minerva with a smug kind of expression that Minerva doesn't like. She's never seen this woman before, she knows she hasn't because she would have remembered a malice as strong as this one.

But she still knows her. Somehow, in some part of Minerva's mind, she knows this woman. Maybe not who she is, exactly, but Minerva knows that she is an enemy. She takes a few hurried steps backward, but it's not enough. There's nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run, and the woman only follows Minerva as she backs up farther and farther. Finally she stops, far too close for comfort, and smiles.

Minerva is surprised not to see fangs.

But the woman has very nice teeth, clean and straight, and on anyone else it would have seemed friendly. The look in this woman's eyes manage to make it seem hungry instead.

"Who are you?" Minerva asks.

The woman doesn't answer, but her smile turns meaner. Instead of addressing Minerva's question, she takes a long look, cold eyes studying every inch of Minerva's body. She shivers and crosses her arms, feeling strangely naked under the woman's gaze- but the woman only tuts and grabs Minerva's arms, uncovering her to better see her. The woman's fingers are long and slender, and burn like ice where they: rest on Minerva's wrist.

"Unbelievable," she says at last, without loosening her grip at all. "Once upon a time, you were one of the great ones. A particularly obnoxious one that I would personally love to take my revenge on…" she trails off, and Minerva has to force herself not to cower away at the tone in her voice when she says _revenge_. Suddenly, she wishes very much that she could remember what her life had been before Shaun and Ezio brought her back. She wants to know who this woman is, and what had happened between them to make her want Minerva dead so badly. Or maybe she doesn't- she has a bad feeling it would only make her feel worse.

"And then," the woman goes on, "You leave all that behind. Willingly." She lets go of Minerva and shoves her backward. "You turned yourself into a _fucking _human. I may kill you just for that."

"You're as human as I am!" Minerva protests, and flinches as the woman snarls at her.

"No," she says. "I wear a human skin until the day comes when I can resume my true form. But you… you chose this life. It's despicable, it's filthy. You're nothing but a grimy little human, an ant to be stepped on like every other member of your species, except that you've committed the added crime of betraying my people."

"You're crazy," Minerva says.

The woman shakes her head. "To you, I'm sure it looks that way," she says. "Because your primitive mind can't comprehend who I am or what I'm doing."

"At least I'm not-"

"I really wouldn't finish that thought, if I were you," the woman snarls, so abruptly that Minerva feels her next comment freeze in her throat. "Because I imagine that right now, you think you're safe. That I can't find you because I'm far away. But that's not at all true, you see… because whether or not you want to admit it, you were once one of us, and certain things effect you in ways that don't apply to humans."

"This afternoon…" Minerva starts, then stops because she's not sure if the woman is going to yell at her again for saying something. But the woman seems pleased.

"So you did notice," she says. "Time stopped."

"It- that's what- _why_?"

"All a part of the plan," the woman says.

Minerva doesn't ask what the plan is- she doesn't want to know. Instead, she focuses on making herself seem as small as possible, and trying to wake up. But the woman only shakes her head.

"There is nowhere you can run where I won't find you," she says. "Awake or asleep, alive or dead, I will find you, and I will make you suffer for what you've done."

For being human, Minerva translates in the privacy of her own head. Because this woman- Juno- thinks she's so much better than everyone else on the planet even though she's just some bully trying to bring back a past that sounds terrible. At least it does if the others had been anything like her (and Minerva wonders what exactly that says about her, and who she used to be. She doesn't remember choosing to become human, but she's glad at that moment that she did). And suddenly, Minerva is angry.

"No way," she says. "Whatever you're planning, you won't get away with it."

Juno laughs. "Little brat," she says. "I suppose it won't be any fun if you don't put up a fight. You can't possibly stop me."

"That's okay," Minerva says. "I don't need to do anything by myself. That's what family's for."

And Juno is so close at that moment, it's easy for Minerva to leap to her feet and slap her across the face. A very large part of her mind is shouting that this is a terrible idea and she should _stop, now_. But she doesn't listen. It's probably too late anyway, because Juno looks pissed as she shoves Minerva backward.

And then-

Minerva wakes up. She takes a second to get everything straight in her head- seeing Juno, the hints of a bigger plan, the mention of _time travel_, and Juno's reference to getting her own body back someday. None of that makes any sense to Minerva, but maybe it will to someone else. She half climbs, half falls out of bed, and goes looking for someone to tell her story to.


	11. Chapter 11

**June 2014**

**Six Months later**

**-/-**

It's been a very long time since Connor has flown as much as he has over the past few months. Coast to coast, Canada to America to Mexico, until finally something like homesickness leads him back to the place he'd grown up. That had been a very long time ago, of course, and the land is different. There are very few places that Connor can point to as being the same in this century as his own. The buildings, the people, even the ground under his feet, they've all changed in unbelievably huge ways.

But there's still something that's exactly the same, and when Connor takes to the sky it feels like coming home. This is where he first spread his wings, where he learned to fly, where he came to know what freedom really means. He'll never forget what it feels like to fly here, not if he lives forever.

He spends months there, staying in the spare bedroom of an old woman that swears her family has lived in the area for hundreds of years. More than once, Connor wants to tell her that he's actually been alive that long (in a manner of speaking), but he doesn't. It's enough that she's nearly blind and goes to bed when the sun goes down- she has no idea that Connor spends his nights in the air, and that's all Connor can ask for in a landlord.

Most days, he tries to avoid thinking too much about the future. Or the past. He's spent years worrying about what's happened to his family in the past, and what might possibly go wrong in the future. It's not easy, because he's a worrier by nature, the kind of person that wants- needs- to protect the people closest to him. But that's not easy, anymore. The threats facing them used to be things he could see and understand, but the more the precursors get entangled in their affairs, the harder it gets for Connor to keep up with what's happening. He doesn't even know what they're facing anymore, much less how to fight back.

And that bothers him. A lot.

So Connor flies. On the ground, his thoughts are mixed up and unhappy, and it makes Connor feel sick with his own lack of power. In the air, his mind is occupied with thoughts of winds and air speed and the feel of his feathers shifting with every movement. He wants this to be his whole life from here on out, simple and free of responsibilities. And as long as he keeps moving, keeps flying, keeps his mind off everything else, he can pretend that it will be.

But as soon as he comes back down, the worries come crowding back into his brain, reminding him that someday he'll have to go back and face problems that he's certain will be even more complicated than they had been when he left. And he will go back. Someday. When he can force himself away from the skies here. Every night, when he climbs in through his own window to avoid waking up his landlord, he swears that he'll leave in the morning. And every morning, when the cold, hard light of dawn reminds him what's waiting for him at home, he reluctantly decides to wait another day. Just one more day, always one more day. Every morning for six months, he wakes up and tells himself just one more day.

When something finally happens to disrupt his regular routine, it doesn't come from Connor. Sometime in the early afternoon, Connor's landlord knocks on his door to inform him that there's someone there to visit him.

"Really?" he asks, skeptically. "Someone came to visit me? It's not just someone trying to sell something, or a politician looking for votes?"

The old woman shakes her head, eyes wide behind a pair of enormous glasses. "He specifically asked for you, dear."

Connor reflexively inventories the half dozen weapons he has on him, and runs through a mental list of enemies that might have been able to track him down before pressing the old woman farther. "Did he give a name?"

"No," the woman says. "Sorry, I didn't think to ask him. He seemed very friendly, though. Tall. Blonde." She winks at him, a truly disturbing expression on a woman as old as her. "Sexy."

"Edward," Connor says, and curses the mental image of his landlord trying to flirt with his grandfather. There's no way he's ever getting that out of his head. Not without serious counseling. "You- he-" he swallows hard. "I'm going down to talk to him."

-/-

It is in fact Edward waiting in the old lady's kitchen, looking serenely unbothered by the eight decades of clutter surrounding him, a testament to the extreme hoarding power of old women. Some flowery scent drifts through an open window on a spring breeze, accompanied by the quiet droning of bees. Connor stops in the kitchen doorway, trying to look like everything's under control, eyes darting around the kitchen as he struggles to make sense of the unexpected calm of the room. "So," he says. "Did you just come here to flirt with my octogenarian landlord, or is there something else going on?"

Edward doesn't answer, just gives him a wry grin and gestures for Connor to sit at the other side of the table. "If you really wanted to hide, you shouldn't have come running straight here," he says. "You're just lucky everyone else thinks you're too smart to hide somewhere so obvious."

"I'm not hiding," Connor says. "I just didn't tell anyone where I was going."

"Fine," Edward says. "Then you're running away."

"Flying," Connor protests, softly. "Not running."

Edward nods. "Things are worse," he says.

"Of course they are," Connor says. "Nothing ever gets easier, does it?"

"Life wouldn't be fun if they did," Edward says, perfectly cheerfully. "So do you want to know what happened, or not?"

Connor hesitates, mentally weighing the advantages of returning against the simple joys of the last few months.

"Come on, Con," Edward urges, ignoring the way Connor scowls at the nickname. No one else calls him that, and he's fairly sure Edward only does so because he knows how much it annoys him. "I think you're the sanest out of all of us, and we could really use some sanity at the moment."

This is an opinion Connor has always privately held, so he doesn't argue the point, just nods. "Fine," he says. "What's been going on while I've been here?"

It's a long story, and it takes Edward a while to tell it. About halfway through, the old landlord comes in with a plate of cookies and- to Connor's eternal embarrassment- a bottle of wine, delivered with a wink and a pick up line that sounds like it might have been relevant about sixty years ago. Edward flirts back with apparent enjoyment, until finally the woman leaves the kitchen, giggling like a schoolgirl.

"You're shameless," Connor says flatly.

"Yep," Edward says, and goes on with the story. By this point, they've covered the move back to the states, Haytham's secret marriage to Rebecca (and the subsequent loud and dramatic outing at Christmas), and Minerva's dream about Juno.

"So she had a nightmare," Connor says. "Is that really important? I mean, I know she doesn't remember what happened before she became human, but it's not completely impossible that it might come out in a dream, is it?"

"No," Edward says. "That's what we thought at first, except she kept having the dreams."

"Kept," Connor repeats. "Past tense. That means she's not having them anymore. What changed?"

"She's gone," Edward says. "Two days ago, she just vanished. It was the middle of the night, she was in the house with Shaun and Ezio, and then she was suddenly gone. There's no way they would have missed anyone going into the house."

"Nobody human," Connor says.

"Exactly. And Juno's already kidnapped her once."

"But she's dead," Connor protests.

"Nobody ever saw the body," Edward says, and Connor feels a chill go crawling up his spine. He doesn't scare easily, but the thought of Juno still being alive when all of them had thought- had been _sure- _she was dead is the stuff of nightmares. He doesn't even want to think about what she could have done in six months.

Connor sighs and gets to his feet. Minerva still gives him the creeps, if he's completely honest with himself. But it doesn't matter that he doesn't particularly like her, because no one else seems to have a problem with the girl. They'd taken her in the same way they'd taken him when he'd been younger, and so of course he's going to help. And anyway, she doesn't deserve to be left in Juno's power. "Alright," he says. "I'll come back. I'll help look for her."

"Thank you," Edward says, voice surprisingly serious. "That means a lot to me."

"Please, no," Connor says, wincing. "We're not having a moment here."

Edward laughs. "Fine," he says. "Ready to go?"

The old woman comes back in at this point, face bright and- Connor very nearly groans out loud- painted with makeup that would have looked much better on her thirty or forty years ago. When she sees the two of them standing to leave, her expression droops a little. "Leaving so soon?" she asks.

"Yes," Connor says bluntly, before Edward can open his mouth. "And I… probably won't be back."

"Oh," the old woman says. "So suddenly?"

"Yes," Connor says. "Sorry." And he really does feel bad- the woman has been nothing but kind to him during his stay, albeit in a distracted, clueless sort of way.

"Well, your rent's paid up through the end of the month," the old woman says. "So I suppose you can leave if you need to. But maybe your friend..?" she casts a hopeful glance at Edward.

"Sorry," Edward says, grinning. "I'm just here to take him away."

"But thank you for your hospitality," Connor adds, with the politeness his mother had ingrained in him when he was a child. "You've been a very good landlady."

"Ah well," the woman says, sighing. "Look me up if you're ever in the neighborhood, dears."

"Sure thing," Edward says, pulling on his jacket and turning toward the door

"Thanks again, Mrs. Cormac," he says. "Really."

Edward grabs him by the upper arm, completely ignoring Connor's involuntary flinch. "Come on already," he hisses, and Connor sighs before following.

"So," Connor says, when they're on the street outside. Connor has accumulated few possessions during his six months on his own, and he doesn't much mind losing any of them. This is the second time in less than a year that he's just gotten up and walked away from his life, and this time he feels a lot better about it than he had the first time. "Where do we go first?"

Edward has always been a very good talker. It's not that he has anything particularly clever or insightful to say, it's just that he really enjoys it. If skill can be measured in sheer quantity, then Edward is the most talented speaker Connor has ever met. He launches into a longwinded explanation of what they've already tried and what they need to do and where they need to go next.

Connor lets it all wash over him, knowing from experience that Edward will get to the point eventually, and any attempts to hurry him along will only slow him down further while he pouts. Instead, he focuses on the feeling of drawing into himself, and remembering (as best he can) what it means to be a normal person. He imagines himself sliding locks over the part of his mind that wants to fly again. His wings feel like they're aching inside him, but he forces the feeling down and ignores it. There will be more chances to fly in the future, just not as regularly as he's gotten used to over the past few months.

"…and that's why we're headed north," Edward finishes. "Our last known location for Juno was Montreal, and Haytham says her boyfriend hasn't left Abstergo, so she's probably nearby too."

"Boyfriend?" Connor makes a face at the absurd image of Juno in a committed relationship of any kind. "Oh. John."

"Yep," Edward says. Then, just as Connor's train of thought has started to drift onto methods of finding Juno and getting Minerva's location out of her, Edward glances sideways at Connor and speaks again. "Are you alright, by the way?"

"Fine," Connor says. "Why?"

"I mean, you did just run away for half a year," Edward goes on. "Most people would interpret that as a cry for help."

"I'm not-"

"I mean, if you wanted to talk about your _feelings_, or something-" Connor scoffs and Edward laughs out loud, unable as ever to stay serious.

"You're terrible."

"Yep," Edward agrees. "But you should see your face."

**-/-**

**So I named Connor's landlord Cormac because I just recently finished playing Rogue and Shay keeps trying to sneak his way into every chapter. He's just awesome and I want to write all the fanfics about him but I already said Rogue doesn't count in this fic and I refuse to break my own continuity. So I compromised with myself and just named with a character after him. With added secondhand embarrassment for Connor because why not.**


	12. Chapter 12

**(Minerva)**

**-/-**

Minerva has gotten very used to the sight of darkness.

Before Juno just walked into her bedroom in the middle of the night and stole her away (_stole _her, like a prize to be claimed instead of a real person), she'd never thought of darkness as something to be seen. Only now, after so long in the darkness she's started to lose track of time, the darkness has started to change. She can feel it pressing into her eyes like something physical, something thick and mean. There's absolutely nothing to see, so her terrified mind projects shapes and character to the shadows.

Occasionally, she sleeps. Never for long, but sometimes when she wakes there will be food in the tray in front of her. Minerva has no idea how Juno knows when she sleeps, but no one ever comes in when she's awake. It's been a very long time since Minerva heard another voice. Or anything at all, really, other than the sound of her own breathing.

She focuses on that as much as she can, the sound of steady breathing in her ears, because when she's not concentrating on that, she tends to focus on the feeling of the walls around her. There's just enough space in- in wherever she is- for her. And that's basically everything. She can actually feel the walls brushing her shoulders if she moves too far to either side, and even without being particularly claustrophobic, Minerva is terrified of the tightness here. It's like being buried alive.

Complete with the smell- most of the time, the whole place stinks of stale urine and feces, because when she has to go, there's nowhere _to_ go but right where she's standing. The floor is concrete and constantly sticky, and the feel of it between her toes and under her feet makes her feel like something dirty and animal.

Sometimes, when she can't control her fear and panic, she cries. During the worst times, when the tears just won't stop coming, the salty taste runs down her face until it coats her tongue. It's all she can taste, and it tastes of pure misery and fear.

She has no way of knowing how long it is that she's trapped, alone in the darkness with every sense stolen from her. It feels like a very long time, and the worst is the feeling that she's done this before. Waited for an eternity for someone to come rescue her, and being powerless to do anything _but _wait. Being trapped like this is starting to wake… not the memories themselves, but the feeling of those memories, and that old terror is a better prison than the walls around her could ever be, more binding than the ropes tying her wrists together in front of her, more barring than the locked door she has no way to open.

And then, one day, that door does open.

It happens after a long enough time has passed for Minerva to have given up on that ever happening. For a moment she just stares into the sudden light like a slack jawed moron, not quite believing that this is her chance to leave. She makes a strangled half noise and squints into the light, hope rising up like a tide within her. There is a figure standing there, in the light, and for one heart stopping moment, Minerva thinks this might be a rescuer. Then the figure laughs, and Minerva feels the blood freeze in her veins as she recognizes Juno's voice. Of course.

"Get out of there, you filthy little brat," Juno jeers, and Minerva follows the command unthinkingly. Any resistance she might have normally had is utterly gone, wiped out by her time spent alone and in the dark. She stands, trembling, in front of the woman she now hates more than anyone else in the world, and waits to find out what her fate will be. When her eyes begin to adjust to the light, she looks around a little. Not that there's much to see- she's in a very small apartment, and now that she's on this side of the door she can see that her prison is nothing but a glorified closet with the biggest lock she's ever seen in her life. That makes her feel even worse, knowing that something so small and stupid had been enough to keep her trapped for so long.

"You smell like shit," Juno says, after a long period of contemplation.

"Sorry," Minerva whispers, because it seems like the safest answer. Her voice is hoarse and barely audible, even in the absolute silence of the room.

"I don't want you to be sorry!" Juno snarls, and she draws back an arm like she's going to slap her. "I want you to understand!" She growls out a wordless noise of frustration and drops her hand to run it through her hair, so hard it looks like she's going to pull it out. "That was one month. One month of absolute _nothing_. You and I, we waited millennia in conditions worse than that. Because of humans, because they destroyed everything we'd ever built. I gave you a little taste of that so that you can understand, because you should be on _my _side. All I want is our revenge. To undo everything they've done to us."

"You can't," Minerva says, not knowing why she's arguing. "It's impossible to change the past-"

"For anyone other than me," Juno says. "I have this." And she grabs something off a nearby table and holds it out for Minerva to see. It's a key, golden and half substantial. "My own invention," she says, a hint of insane pride breaking through her anger.

"Time travel?"

"It's been charging since before our society fell," Juno says. "But it will be complete before the end of the month, and then I will use it to travel back to a time before our people fell, to before the humans revolted, and I will _put them in their place_."

Minerva doesn't waste a single moment on doubt. Juno, as insane as she is, cannot be called a stupid woman. And Minerva has felt time stop herself- it could be a sign of Juno's key finishing its charge. That makes about as much sense as anything else.

"So," Juno says. "Are you with me, or not? I would like you to be. You've suffered as much at the hands of humans as I have, and you deserve your revenge."

Minerva thinks about her time locked in a tiny closet, cut off from everything in the world except herself. And she imagines what it must be like to spend endless ages, the whole of human history, in a darkness even worse than that. She can grudgingly admit to understanding why Juno would believe she deserves revenge after that- and she can certainly understand why she might go insane, if she hadn't been to begin with.

But she will never agree.

"I don't remember that," she says. "I don't remember centuries of… of _that_. All I know is that you have been my jailer for the past month. You. And I am human, so that revenge you're so bent on is revenge against me, and my family, and everyone I care about." She's terrified, and she should sound terrified, but she doesn't. Maybe it's just her voice, too hoarse and out of use to show the proper amount of fear. "You're a monster."

There should be anger, but Juno's face as she bends down to Minerva's level is saccharine sweet, and her voice is just as sugary. "My dear," she says. "You have not begun to guess how monstrous I can be."

She lashes out so suddenly that Minerva is taken completely by surprise. That first blow is the worst, but the ones that follow are still painful. They're solid blows, calculated to hit exactly where they will hurt the most. It's overkill (almost literally), because Minerva is skin and bone, scrawny enough after her confinement that a strong wind could have knocked her to the ground. After only a few seconds, she blacks out completely.

-/-

Time.

Goes by-

…by in fits and bursts.

_sometimes_it_speeds_by_so_quickly_she_can't_keep_up and sometimes it move s.

And some-

(sometimes, there is pain, and)

Every day she loses herself a little bit more.

**-/-**

**Connor**

**-/-**

It takes far too long to find the place where Juno has Minerva hidden. He doesn't realize that until he's actually standing over the girl, in an apartment they should have checked weeks ago. Only it's an old one, a place John used to live in before the entire building was condemned for failing to pass fire code. It's empty, abandoned, a home to rats and spiders. There isn't- there _shouldn't be- _anyone else there.

But there is. There's a little girl on the eighth floor with the shit beat out of her so badly it looks like she'll never move again. Never wake again, maybe. In fact, Connor has to double and triple check to make sure she's still breathing.

"Hey," he says, not expecting an answer but needing to say the words because at this moment she looks more like a sack of broken organs and bones than an actual human. "I'm going to get you out of here," he says. "And Ezio's only about a block away. Shaun's a little farther but I know he'll come running as soon as he finds out we have you. We're all here. In the city, scouring every place we can think of, looking for you."

His phone rings, and Connor considers not answering until he glances at the caller ID and sees Ezio's name come up. He probably deserves to know what's going on here. Instead of hello, he says, "I found her."

"That's-" the phone clatters a little, and Connor can only guess what he's doing, until finally Ezio gets enough control over himself to speak normally. "That's fantastic." He says something long and relieved in Italian, then Connor hears Altair shout something urgently, and Ezio refocuses. "Right," Ezio says. "Um- Juno's headed your way."

"Of course she is," Connor says, and hangs up again as Ezio starts on a stream of advice and nervous ramblings. He's been told, over and over again, that he's the sane one, the one that doesn't get emotional or lose control when things get insane. Right now, with Juno bearing down on them and Minerva barely holding together, that is- _Connor _is- exactly what they need.

The girl's injured badly enough that moving her is going to be a dangerous task. It's a miracle she's still alive, in Connor's opinion, and he's seen a lot of injuries in the past. Very, very, carefully, Connor gathers the girl into his arms, taking special pains not to touch what looked like the more sensitive and badly injured areas.

He'd climbed up the outside of the building to get in, but climbing down is out of the question with Minerva. But so is using the stairs, because if Juno is on the way up, there's too high a chance of running into her. The same goes for flying- while most people tend not to look up, Juno knows her enemies have wings.

Connor mulls this over for a few minutes, weighing each option, before finally making up his mind, grips the girl more firmly, and goes to the stairs. And climbs up. Two floors up, he kicks in a door and waits, until he can hear the sounds of Juno downstairs. She shouts, loudly enough to for Connor to hear, even with two ceilings between her and him, and there's the sound of something smashing.

Finally, though, Juno's tantrum abates. Connor waits long enough to make sure she's really gone, and takes the stairs. This time he goes down, and sure enough sees no hint of Juno- in fact, he doesn't see anyone at all until he's gone a block and a half to where Ezio's waiting.

"You got her," Ezio says, then does a double take and sucks in a sharp hiss of air, a surprised noise as he takes in the full extent of her injuries. "Shit."

"Yea," Connor says. "But- listen, Ezio, we need a real doctor to look at her. And I mean soon. Call an ambulance, get her to a hospital, and deal with everything else later."

"Juno will be able to track her if we check her into any hospital in the city," Ezio says, but he sounds only half convinced, like he's ready to drive her himself.

"So we guard her," Connor says. "We know she's coming now, we'll be ready. But trust me, Minerva's not going to make it if we don't get her help as soon as possible."

"Yea," Ezio says. "I know." He calls the ambulance, gives a surprisingly calm description of where they are and Minerva's condition. Connor notices that he specifically avoids mentioning any details of how she'd come to be injured, and makes a mental note that they'll have to come up with a believable story (because telling the truth is a laughable idea). When he's done, the two of them- three, counting the still unconscious Minerva- stand in silence, waiting for the sound of ambulance sirens.

"This is it, isn't it?" Ezio asks, after a very long time. "We're all in the same place, and Juno knows where we are. One way or another, we're not all walking out of this city alive."

"Probably not," Connor agrees. There's that kind of a feeling in the air, like the electric feeling right before a bad storm rolls in. This is the beginning of the end.


	13. Chapter 13

Most people don't look up too often.

This, Desmond understands, is a fundamental fact of human nature. People look at each other, they look at the ground, they look at where they've come from, and they look at where they're going. 'Up' is pretty much the only direction they don't look.

Which is a good thing tonight, because the assassins are making no effort to stay hidden. They're waiting. Watching. Guarding. The hospital where they've brought Minerva is an older building, built up and added to over the years since it was first constructed. The inside was a confusing maze of hallways that led to unexpected places and elevators that went only halfway up the building. The nurses and doctors seemed to have a sort of sixth sense on how to get from place to place quickly, but that does little to help the assassins.

There are too many doors and windows to watch, so they watch from the rooftops instead. Six assassins, wings spread, armed to the teeth, watching the streets and the skies. It's only a matter of time until Juno comes, and this is the best way to keep an eye out for her. Inside, Shaun stands guard over Minerva's bed. He's not their strongest fighter, but Juno would have to get past everyone else to get to the two of them- by that point, the fight will already be lost. Rebecca walks the hallways outside, making sure none of the hospital staff is acting suspiciously. Juno's not the type to get other people to do her work for her, but that doesn't mean she's incapable of delegation.

"Desmond-"

He jerks a little as Haytham lands on the ledge next to him. Because of the piecemeal construction of the hospital, the roof is a multilayered monstrosity- the assassins are scattered on different levels of the roof, watching every available angle for Juno's approach, and so Haytham's arrival is sort of a surprise. "Hey," Desmond says, recovering himself a little. "What's up?"

"Something's wrong," Haytham says, and Desmond notes the way his eyes are constantly moving, scanning the streets below. "This is too easy."

"Easy?" Desmond asks. "This is easy?"

"Yes," Haytham says. "The last day I was at Abstergo-" two days ago, just after Minerva had been found- "I saw John."

"Yes," Desmond says. "He works there."

"He laughed," Haytham says. "John's a cocky bastard, but he definitely knows something we don't. That means Juno knows something we don't, and that means we should be extremely worried."

Desmond shrugs, uncomfortable. "I guess," he says. "But I mean… it's Juno. I'd be really surprised if things _didn't _go to shit. Didn't you notice our plan is basically 'wait for her to show up and do something'? We're just reacting to whatever she's going to do."

"Worst plan ever," Ezio comments, appearing out of nowhere to land beside the other two. Desmond jumps for a second time, and swears.

"Shit, guys," he complains. "Can you maybe stop doing that?"

"Pay more attention," Haytham says.

"I thought I was supposed to be watching the street, not you guys," Desmond grumbles, but when Edward flies over a few minutes later, he's paying enough attention to avoid being surprised.

"So I was thinking," he says. "About this plan-"

"It sucks but we don't have a choice," Haytham says. "Yes, we've covered that already."

"Then we should be doing something," Edward says. "Looking for her, anything!"

"We've been looking for her for what feels like forever," Haytham says. "We're not going to track her down now, and splitting our forces is a bad idea."

"We know she's coming here," Desmond says. "That's the only thing we know for sure, so this is where we have to be." He sighs, then adds "Hey, Connor," as their little group grows again.

"Hey," Connor says. "What's going on? I saw everyone over here and thought-"

"Nothing's wrong," Ezio says. "We're just complaining."

"Well, you can complain later," Connor says. "In case you forgot, we're still on the job."

But as he's turning to leave, Altair comes flying over from his perch on the other side of the roof. And while the others range from vaguely worried to outright bored by the long waiting game, he looks grim and almost afraid. "We're too late," he says. "Rebecca just called. Juno's already inside."

"What?" Ezio jumps to his feet, fists clenched. "We need to get in there, now."

"No." Altair grabs Ezio by the arm before he can take a single step. His mouth is set in a thin, tight line, and Desmond feels the bottom drop out of his stomach at the look in Altair's eyes. There's something there that Desmond had never expected to see from his surrogate father.

Defeat.

"What do you mean, no?" Ezio shouts, wrenching his arm away. "This is exactly what we've been waiting for, why wouldn't we-"

"She has a bomb," Altair says, and all the anger just drains right out of Ezio's face, replaced with surprise and then a numb kind of shock. "We've already lost."

That's when the building underneath them explodes. It's a huge, hot explosion, bursting out of the building in a burning hot fireball. Luckily- if a bomb in a hospital can be called lucky by any stretch of the imagination- it's several floors below them. Desmond feels the ground beneath him shift and buckle, and a second later he's been thrown clear by the sheer force of the blast. It resonates through him like a shockwave, and Desmond's vision starts to blur a little at the edges as consciousness threatens to desert him.

The seconds stretch out to an eternity, and the world seems to shift into slow motion. He shakes his head to clear it, and spreads his wings, looking around desperately to make sure everyone else is still alright. His heart is hammering inside his chest and he feels like there's a vice squeezing at his lungs so that every breath is a struggle. He can see the others falling around him, a flock of birds with broken wings, and the sight is awful. They are creatures of wind and air, best suited to the open air.

Fire is not their element, and Desmond can feel the heat below him eating at his feathers so that they start to curl up and mess with his flight. He swerves and almost falls, but manages to make it to the next closest rooftop just in time. Altair lands a few feet ahead of him, stumbling just slightly, and Edward slams into the wall a few seconds later, fingers scrabbling desperately for a solid grip. Desmond lunges toward him, grabbing the man and hauling him up as Altair jumps back off the roof.

Desmond is too worn out to do anything but sit back, panting desperately for air, but he watches as Altair dives for Connor. He must have been standing slightly closer to the explosion, or been hit by the shockwave in just the wrong way, because he's still unconscious and falling uncontrollably. His wings trail behind him as he falls, ragged and torn by the force of the wind and flames.

"Sh- shit," Edward pants. His eyes are wide and scared, all traces of his normal bravado completely wiped away. He makes it to his knees, crouching on the very edge of the roof, but he doesn't move any farther. By the time he makes it to Connor, there won't be enough time to slow down safely.

But Altair _is _close enough, and he manages to grab Connor around the waist and slow his fall. Between him and Haytham, who seems the least injured from the blast, they manage to haul Connor onto the roof next to the other three.

And there they stand, the five of them, staring at each other like the world has just come crashing down around them, and they can't quite believe that it's happened so quickly.

Because it has. And they can't.

Finally, Desmond speaks. "If Juno was in there, she's dead now, too." But he doesn't really believe what he's saying, and obviously no one else does, either.

"It's her bomb," Haytham says. "She'll have had a way out, she's too smart to get stuck in her own trap." There's a ventilation system a few feet away, and he lashes out suddenly, kicking at the metal so hard that it dents under his repeated blows. "Damn it! Damn _her_!"

The rest of them only watch, too tired and defeated to interfere. Haytham very rarely gets angry, but when he does it's a sight to see. When he finally finishes lashing out at the architecture, he collapses, panting and still scowling, onto the roof between Edward and Connor. "Shit," he mumbles, apparently for emphasis.

"Um…" Desmond suddenly frowns. "Where's Ezio?"

"I saw him," Edward volunteers. "When we were falling. He looked okay, but I guess…"

Almost as one, they turn to stare at the rubble of what had been a hospital building less than five minutes ago. There's no question that if Ezio had survived the blast, that's where he must have gone. With Shaun and Minerva inside when the bomb went off, there's nowhere else on Earth he would have gone.

"They might have survived," Edward says. "We did."

"We were on the roof," Altair says. Connor starts to twitch and moan softly, putting a hand to his head and sitting up, obviously in pain. "They were in the middle of…" he gestures at the rubble. "Of that. That means not only the initial bomb blast, but all that rubble, falling on top of them. And the fire, the fall… no, it's too late. We messed up. We failed, and we let her win."

"Dad…" Desmond's protest dies in his throat as Altair turns his back on the others, crossing his arms and hunching his shoulders like the weight of the entire world has settled on him. Desmond can practically see him mentally assigning himself responsibility for all those deaths, for the nurses and doctors crushed under rubble, for long term patients burned alive, for newborn infants that will never get to live. And suddenly he's angry.

Desmond gets to his feet, surprised that he doesn't shake at all as he does so. "You said it yourself," he says. "Juno has to still be alive, so we have to stop her. Okay?"

"We don't know where to find her," Haytham protests. "Altair's right, this is over. She's won."

"Not yet," Desmond says. "We don't need to find her." He takes a deep breath. "Juno's going to come find us."

The others look at him with blank, uncomprehending faces, but Desmond doesn't wait for them to put it together. He knows they'll try to stop him, and there's no time for that. He can hear a crowd starting to gather below them, ambulances from other hospitals and news crews ready to film the carnage.

Desmond takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and does a leap of faith off the roof. The fall seems to take forever, and Desmond can hear the people below him shouting as they catch sight of him. When he's close enough, he lets his wings snap out, slowing him down enough so that when he lands safely instead of crashing into a fresh crater in the rubble.

And the people stare. At him, at his wings, at the intense expression he can feel forming on his own face. He strides to the nearest newscaster, a blonde woman with her mouth gaping over in shock. She holds her microphone loosely in one hand, and Desmond grabs it from her before turning to the camera.

"You missed," he says, and smiles at the imagined look of fury on Juno's face when she sees the broadcast. Behind him, he hears several quick thuds, and doesn't have to look behind him to know the rest of his family is standing there, silently supporting him. "But feel free to try again, any time you want. We're done hiding."

"And we'll be ready next time," Altair growls from behind him.

"Sir!" The newswoman calls after Desmond as he starts to turn away from the camera. "Sir, are you claiming responsibility for this explosion?"

"Absolutely not," Desmond says, without elaboration. He doesn't want anyone else going after Juno. They wouldn't have the slightest idea how to stop her, and he doesn't want any more pointless deaths in this war.

"And the- the wings?" the woman asks. "How- what _are _you people?"

This time, Desmond doesn't stop, just walks away with the others to blend into the crowd. This is perhaps the only place on Earth where five men with wings can walk around without attracting attention. It's not that nobody notices, it's that nobody cares. For now, at least, the recent disaster is the only thing anyone cares about.

Desmond pulls his wings back in, following the example of the others just ahead of him, and suddenly it's like he really is invisible. The cries of the sick and injured are a horrible chorus in his ears, and the stench is enough to make him want to throw up. Dust and dirt clogs the air, and Desmond has to switch to eagle vision just to keep his family in sight.

And it's lucky that he does, because that's when he notices the flash of blue in the corner of his eye. Three figures, half obscured behind a pile of rubble a little way away from the epicenter of the explosion, glowing with a soft, reassuring aura. Desmond gasps and breaks away from the rest of the group. He's fighting his own brain the whole time, trying to fight down the sudden burst of hope that's rises up in him.

But sure enough, when he rounds the corner there they are- Rebecca, Shaun, and Minerva, the latter two with wings spread, all three looking burned and scraped but alive. Conscious, even.

Desmond stares down at the group on the ground, uncomprehending (he feels like he's missed a step or two) but unbearably relieved. This isn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

**-/-**

**Next chapter: What happened inside the hospital**


	14. Chapter 14

"You do not look good," Rebecca informs Shaun, handing him a cup of coffee as she does so.

"Don't I?" Shaun asks, with a biting sarcasm that's actually reassuring. If he's still with it enough to be sarcastic, he's obviously not as far gone as he looks. "I wonder why that would be." He takes a sip of the coffee and makes a face.

"I know, I know," Rebecca interrupts, before he can say a word. "You hate coffee. This is a hospital, you're lucky they have any kind of drinkable caffeine." She sighs and collapses more than sits down in the empty chair next to his. It's quiet here, quieter than anywhere else in the hospital. During the first day or so, the constant beep-beep-beeping of medical equipment had been like a worm digging into her brain, but by now she's so used to it she barely notices.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" she asks, nodding at Minerva. She isn't expecting anything to have changed- she's only been out for an hour or two, and Minerva has barely moved since they brought her in a couple days ago. The girl's healing _amazingly_ quickly considering how badly she'd been hurt, most likely because of the unusual circumstances around her… birth, but that only means she'll need days instead of months of recovery time.

But to her surprise, Shaun nods. There's a look on her face he can't quite read. "Good or bad?" she asks.

"Good for us, I think," Shaun says. "I mean- well, first of all, she should be waking up soon. Maybe even sometime today. But there's also some bad if anyone else starts connecting the dots."

"What dots?"

"Here-" Shaun pulls out his phone and shows her a picture of an x-ray. It's a small picture, so the details are hard to make out, but it looks like there's more in the picture than there's supposed to be.

"What am I looking at?" Rebecca asks. "I don't get it."

"She's finally healed enough for the doctors to start taking additional x-rays," Shaun explains. "This is her back."

"And...?"

"I'm not a doctor," Shaun says. "But if I had to make a guess, I'd say that is what a pair of wings look like when they're inside someone's back."

"What?" Rebecca takes a second look at the picture, squinting at the shape. Now that she knows what she's looking for, she can kind of see it. Only they look like they've been squished and crumpled and forced into a space that's way too small for them. "That doesn't look good. It looks like it hurts."

"Of course it hurts," Shaun says.

"But… Minerva doesn't have wings."

"Ezio does," Shaun says. "I do. We don't know that it's _not _genetic…"

"Huh," Rebecca says. "Well, that's pretty cool, I guess." Then she frowns. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I just- how are you okay with this?" Shaun asks. "Assuming we're right about Minerva, that makes you the only one _without _wings."

"Oh." Rebecca thinks this over. "I guess."

"And you don't care?"

"Not really," Rebecca says. "It just seems like it causes a lot of problems. I'm happy with who I am, and with where my life is. Not really at this exact second-" she gestures around them at the hospital in general. "But most of the time, I'm pretty happy." She hesitates, then asks, "Are you?"

Shaun's gaze wanders back to Minerva before he answers. "Like you said, not right now. But most of the time."

Rebecca considers saying something. Once upon a time, she had assumed that she and Shaun were going to end up together. At some point, when they got around to it. But that hadn't happened, because Shaun had gotten himself magiced into some impossible family of his own, and Rebecca had somehow ended up with Haytham. But life goes on, and there's no point bringing up the way things used to be.

"I'm going back out," she says instead.

"Bring back some food this time?" Shaun calls, and Rebecca snorts.

"I hope you like stale potato chips," Rebecca says. "Because that's all they have in the vending machines, and the cafeteria food here is just cruel."

Shaun groans loudly, but Rebecca waves him off and leaves. She feels more cheerful than she has in quite a while, despite the promise of several hours' worth of pointlessly wandering the halls. Even two full days of exploration hadn't helped her figure out where anything was, and she was sick of getting lost again and again.

She wasn't even sure what she was supposed to be doing- looking for Juno in this maze? There's no way she'd ever spot her, there are too many hidden hallways and corners and-

"Rebecca."

She jumps a little and turns around, surprised to hear a familiar voice calling her name. "Bill," she says. "Wow. What are you doing here?"

"Someone at Abstergo is buying up bomb parts," William explains. "I got the reports from one of our moles, and traced it to here."

"A bomb?" Rebecca says. "Here?"

"Yes."

"In a hospital?"

William nods, looking somehow even more grim than usual. "Which is why I'm here," he says. Then something seems to connect in his brain. "But you didn't know about the bomb, so- someone's hurt, aren't they?" When Rebecca nods, he somehow manages to look even more upset. "Is it Desmond?"

"No," Rebecca says. "Minerva. She- well, it's kind of a long story and apparently there's a bomb around here somewhere, so we should maybe deal with that first?"

"We?"

"Yes!" Rebecca hisses. "Look, if there's a bomb, I'm pretty interested in making sure the whole building doesn't blow up around us! So- who was the guy buying the bomb parts?"

"John Standish," William says. "He definitely had the bomb earlier, but then he came here to visit someone, and when he left, the bomb was gone."

"Shit," Rebecca hisses. "Standish- John- that's Juno's boyfriend."

"Oh."

"Yea. So where exactly was he?"

"Come on," William says. "I'll show you."

It's three stories up and right next to an elevator, so for once they get there without wasting any time on being lost. Rebecca risks a look in and there she is, just sitting there like she's a perfectly normal patient. And there's a backpack on the floor next to her.

"That's it," William says, as the two of them leave the area, as quietly as possible. "The bomb."

"Shit," Rebecca says for a second time. If he'd been anyone else she might have hit him. "How did you not notice her?"

"The last I heard, she was dead!" William hisses, managing not to raise his voice. "It's not my fault if nobody keeps me in the loop!"

"Fine!" Rebecca says. "Fine. So we, um… wait right there."

Rebecca's been an assassin for several years now, and this is not the first time she's had to steal some patient's hospital records. Still, she's so nervous this time that she almost messes it up. "Here," she says, when she gets back to William. "According to this, she checked in with-" she makes a face. "God, those symptoms sound made up. But she's been here since we checked Minerva in. She must have figured out we'd have to take Minerva to a hospital after what she did to her, and decided to get in before we'd have time to set up a guard. Then she just sits her and waits for John to take the bomb in and- boom."

"I'm definitely missing a few steps here," William says, blankly.

"Doesn't matter," Rebecca says. "We have to stop her before…"

The hairs on the back of her neck start to stand on end, and Rebecca turns around, very slowly, to see Juno standing right behind them. Because of course she'd noticed, because Juno was an evil woman but also intelligent and observant, and a hundred other things that made her so hard to kill.

"Boo," Juno says, and kicks something heavy at the two of them. "I wasn't expecting you here, but… well. Have fun." And she runs, _laughing_, as everyone else in the hallway turns to stare, first at her, then at-

"The bomb," William says, already down on his knees and examining what Juno had kicked at them earlier. He starts barking orders at the people around them, who conveniently enough are all paying attention to them. But even while he's calling for a full evacuation, he never takes his eyes off the bomb. When everyone's moving, Rebecca crouches down next to him.

"How long until it blows?" she asks.

"Fifteen minutes."

"That's not enough time for an evacuation."

"No it is not," William agrees. "Get out of here. I'm going to stay and try to defuse the bomb."

"Do you know how to defuse a bomb?" Rebecca asks.

"Not one this complicated," William says. "But I highly doubt there's anyone better suited in this building, and the police won't get here in time. This is our only chance of saving every person in this hospital."

"But-"

"Rebecca," William snaps. "I really need you to leave, now, because if I don't make it out of here, I need you to explain what happened. And-" Finally, his voice broke a little. "I need you to tell Desmond… tell him."

Rebecca nods, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'll tell him," she says.

"Not if you don't leave," William says. "_Now._"

So that's what Rebecca does. She turns on her heel so quickly she almost slips and falls flat on her face. The entire hospital is chaos, but she only needs to make it down three floors- she fights the crowds just long enough to get back to Minerva's room.

"What's going on?" Shaun demands, as soon as Rebecca bursts through the door.

"Bomb," she says. "Downstairs. We need to get out of here, now." She turns to see if Minerva is well enough to carry, but to her surprise the girl is actually awake, wide eyed and scared.

"There's a bomb?"

"Yea," Rebecca says. "We have…" she glances at her watch. "Six minutes left."

"That's not enough time to get down," Shaun says.

"Are you-" Rebecca rolls her eyes. "Shaun, the two of you can fly! You'll be fine."

Shaun frowns at her, and Rebecca knows they're both thinking about their conversation from earlier, when they'd talked about how she was the only one that didn't have wings. She can tell he's about to say something, but Minerva interrupts before he can. Her voice is high and scared, and Shaun moves to her bed to explain about the x-rays and their theory that she has wings because he and Ezio do.

As Shaun starts walking her through the process of how to bring her wings out, Rebecca walks to the window and calls Altair. The rest of the assassins are all on the rooftop, waiting for Juno to show up, with no idea that she's already come and gone and done her worst. She explains only the bare details, but it still takes way too much time. When she finally hangs up, there's barely a minute left.

Something slams into her side, and Rebecca shrieks in surprise and pain as she goes straight through the window. Shards of glass cut at her exposed skin and she can feel a sickening sensation of falling. Then she feels a pair of arms wrapping around her stomach, slowing her down and pulling her back. She looks up and there's Shaun, struggling to bear their combined weight, and Minerva a little above them. Her eyes are closed, and she looks like she's doing something more like a controlled fall than actual flight.

And then the bomb actually goes off, and everything after that is sort of a blur. The next thing she really remembers is being on the ground, surrounded by the other assassins, with the sound of screams and panic in her ears.

She doesn't really listen- people are talking, but with everything else that's happened in the last half hour, Rebecca chooses to just tune out an ignore it all. She can't risk it being more bad news, not when everything else is going wrong.

After a little while, Haytham kneels down in front of her and it's like a dam breaks inside her at the sight. She wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder and her hands in the feathers of his wings, and sobs. But they're tears of anger and frustration, because Juno should not have been allowed to do this.

And she _will not_ be allowed to get away with it.


	15. Chapter 15

Desmond, quite frankly, feels bad for the pair of police officers that show up maybe half an hour later. It seems like every cop in the city has been called into the crater that had been a working hospital earlier that day- most of them are working on evacuation or coordinating rescue efforts, but after Desmond's impromptu press conference someone decides to send a couple guys over to try and contain (to use the officer's words) "whatever the fuck is going on over there".

They have not been adequately prepared. One of them makes a strangled noise of surprise, and the other one stops in his tracks so quickly he actually falls over backward. By this point, the whole group is back together, Ezio having finally shown up again after getting slightly lost and then distracted by a bunch of hospital patients trapped under some of the rubble. But they're all back together now, eight winged humans (plus Rebecca), most of whom look ready and able to kick the ass of anyone that happens to get on their bad sides.

They don't know how much time they'll have before Juno shows, but Desmond guesses it's probably not going to be long. Juno is going to be _pissed _when she realizes her bomb completely failed to kill every single person she was aiming for, and she's not going to waste any time in trying again. They're right in the middle of a hurried conversation about tactics and strategies when the two cops show up. Altair turns around and glares.

"What?" he snaps.

"Um…" the younger of the two cops- although they both look very young at this moment, and very scared- adopts a deer in headlights look. "I think- I don't know, they just sent us here to figure out what was going on." He gulps, and adds, "Sir."

"Are we being arrested?" Ezio asks, sounding more curious than worried. "I haven't been arrested in ages-"

"Ezio," Shaun interrupts. "Stop being excited."

"Breaking out of prison is fun."

Shaun rolls his eyes. "When have you ever been in prison?" he demands.

"Actually…" the second cop goes pale as a sheet as everyone suddenly focuses on her. "I don't think having wings is a crime in any jurisdiction, so I mean it's weird but I don't…" She makes a complicated face. "I really just don't know what's going on here."

"You get used to it," Shaun says, and lets out a sigh of long suffering exasperation.

"Oh come on," Ezio says, nudging him. "You know you like it. And anyway, we have to worry about killing an all-powerful and possibly unkillable woman from before the dawn of human civilization, so…"

The cops look at each other, and the first one says- "Yea, we'll just be over there. Staying out of the way."

"Good thinking," Altair says, and the group conference picks up again as though they hadn't been interrupted in the first place. "So she's going to come soon, and she's going to be angry. The most important thing we need to do is get her away from these crowds. We cannot allow any innocents to be harmed."

"We can lead her away," Ezio says. "She'll have to follow wherever we go."

"They're cordoning off the whole neighborhood," Connor says. "A couple blocks north of here it's all businesses, and they've all been evacuated because of the bomb. We'll probably do some pretty serious property damage, but no one's going to get hurt."

"Sounds perfect," says Altair. "Yes. We'll do that. And then…" he sighs, shakes his head. "I don't know. We'll throw everything we have at her. She looks human, so maybe she can be killed like one. So far she's been one step ahead of us the whole time, but now she'll be angry. She'll make mistakes. This is our chance."

There are nods and words of agreement from the others, and the meeting starts to break up. Then Minerva speaks. "She wants to travel back in time."

So far she's been standing between Shaun and Ezio, arms wrapped around herself like she's trying desperately to keep warm- actually, she probably is. She's still wearing her open backed hospital gown, and it's cold here. But she steps forward anyway, looking up at the others through eyes dimmed by the memory of some recent misery. "She told me all about it when she- when I was…" She takes a deep breath. "Anyway. She wants to go back in time to before the precursors died out and change history somehow. Kill all the humans, I guess."

"Can she do that?" Edward asks.

"No idea," Altair says. "Let's not risk it."

And this time they do split up, not really going their separate ways but drifting into smaller groups as they wait for Juno to show. Desmond's not expecting Rebecca to seek him out, but to his surprise she does. And there's something like pity in her face that he doesn't like seeing. "What's wrong?" he asks, before she can get so much as a word out.

"It's… I left something out about the bomb," Rebecca says. "Because there wasn't time to explain everything before it went off."

"What?" Desmond asks. "Is there another one, or something?"

"No," Rebecca says. "I mean- I hope not, I don't know. But see… I only found out about the bomb because your father was there looking for it first." Desmond suddenly stops breathing, and his entire body freezes up as he processes exactly what that means. "We found the bomb and he stayed behind to try and disarm it."

"So he's-"

"Dead," Rebecca says. "I'm sorry. I didn't see it myself, but I know he wouldn't have given up trying to disarm the bomb until the last possible second. He would have been right on top of it when he exploded, so there's just no chance that he could have-"

"Alright," Desmond interrupts. "I can imagine it myself, thanks." He shivers, suddenly cold. "I just can't believe…" his relationship with William Miles hasn't always- hasn't _ever- _been easy, but that doesn't mean he wants the man dead. Especially not like this, so suddenly and violently and horribly, with no warning and no chance to say goodbye.

"Desmond?" Altair says, and Desmond looks up to see the older man watching him from next to Rebecca. He hadn't even noticed him come over, but there he is, just like he's been there every single other time Desmond's needed him. "Are you-"

"I'm fine." He's not. "Let's just make sure we get it right this time, okay? Juno has to die."

-/-

She comes not long after that, appearing from out of the crowd like a ghost. No one stops her, no one even notices her passing. She's dressed in blue jeans and a forest green sweater, hair just slightly out of place and covered in dust. If not for her bright red aura (like flame, like blood, like death and the end of the world) in eagle vision, she would have looked completely ordinary.

But she's _not _ordinary. Not by any stretch of the imagination. For a minute, nobody moves. They just stand there, waiting for something to happen. Then Juno laughs, and walks toward them with a quick but careless stride that projects absolute confidence. "This is rather foolish, isn't it?" she asks. "We all know how this will end. How it must end."

"You're outnumbered," Altair growls.

"For the moment," Juno says, and holds one hand up, clenched in a fist. Desmond tenses, expecting some kind of weapon, but when she unfolds her hand there's nothing in it but a key, thick and ancient looking, worn down by time. Just looking at it gives Desmond a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach because it feels wrong, like it's disrupting the entire world simply by being there.

Minerva lets out a defeated groan when she sees it, and Juno smirks at her. "Yes," she says, and then the whole world seems to shatter and explode- Desmond flashes back to what Juno had said earlier, about time travel, and at first is almost too surprised to do anything. It's just them and Juno, surrounded by nothing. Or by everything, maybe, all of time. There's a brilliant golden light emanating from the key in Juno's hand, so bright it's literally blinding.

But Desmond has been blind before- a long time ago, as a child- and he doesn't even stop to process this. Even eagle vision is useless with this unnatural light everywhere, but it's not difficult to figure out where Juno was, and he hasn't heard anything to suggest she's moved since. He moves forward and there's a body there, right where he expects it- Desmond is breathing quickly, mind filled with all the terrible consequences of what might happen if Juno's allowed to get away with this.

But something stops him as his hidden blade slides out, some niggling fragment of doubt that this he's got it wrong. He can feel that the person under his grasp is about the same size as Juno, but Rebecca is almost exactly the same height and weight, Shaun's only a little taller, and-

And, and, _and_- the longer he hesitates, the higher the doubts start to pile up. He can't stand the thought of accidentally murdering a friend in cold blood, but if this is Juno and he doesn't act, every human that ever has or ever will exist will be dead.

He stabs. It's quick, clean, and better than Juno deserves, but Desmond doesn't have the time or the patience to do anything else. The feel of metal in flesh is brutally familiar after his time in the animus, and Desmond prays as he pulls the metal out, prays that he's guessed right and this is Juno, and not one of his friends.

But as the body in his grasp goes limp and cold, the light fades out and the world comes back- it's just as they'd left it, exactly the same down to every detail. Except that Juno is dead. Desmond drops her, tosses her away like a pile of garbage. The key, still glowing and dangerous, drops from her hand with a dull thud.

"What just happened?" Shaun demands. "What-"

"I killed her," Desmond says, staring at the corpse on the ground. "I can't believe- it's not supposed to be this easy, is it? After everything she's done, she's just…" he looks up at the others. "I thought it would feel better than this."

Altair bends down and very gingerly picks up the key- it vanishes into a pocket, presumably to be dealt with later, away from prying eyes. "Revenge never feels as good as it's supposed to," he says. "But this is about more than revenge."

"We saved the world," Desmond says.

"You saved the world," Altair corrects.

"I guessed right."

One of the cops coughs loudly from behind them, and Desmond remembers suddenly that they never actually left. "Sorry," she says. "What just happened?"

-/-

It takes a very long time for life to get back to normal, or something that passes for it, at least. They spend months dealing with the police, half a dozen government agencies, the media, and everyone else that gets close enough to ask questions. It's impossible to avoid attention after everything that's happened, but they manage to get through it all without mentioning time travel, assassins, templars, or the first civilization. It's a truly impressive piece of storytelling, especially considering that they're more used to avoiding the police than working with them.

It's really thanks to Ezio that the whole story works so well. He does a spectacular job of playing the role of worried father, explaining that Juno had kidnapped Minerva and held her hostage for months, until finally the girl managed to get free and call for help. He explains that Juno was a deeply troubled woman (possibly the only true part of his story) that had found about the wings (there's no point in hiding those now) and become absolutely obsessed with them. First she'd kidnapped Minerva to try and find out how they worked, and then she'd followed the girl to the hospital to kill her. When that had failed, she tracked down Minerva in the rubble and tried again- Ezio claims he'd killed Juno to protect his daughter, and no one dares doubt him.

His story very neatly explains away everything the world at large is aware of, apart from the wings. Whenever that subject comes up- and it comes up very often- Ezio only shakes his head sadly and says he has no idea. At first, most people seem to doubt that part of the story, but then someone on the internet suggests that there could be secret conclaves of bird people living all over the world, and the media grabs hold of that and runs with it.

It looks like they're having fun.

Within six months, there's more rumor than actual fact on the actual affair, and some celebrity sex scandal takes everyone's eyes off the assassins. The cops look for a way to pin something on them for a while, but they have no proof about anything and there's nothing illegal about being not quite human. As soon as everyone's forgotten about them, the assassins skip town.

They go home.

And amazingly, life goes back to normal. There's about a weeks' worth of interest when the people in the neighborhood make the connection between them and what they've been seeing on the news, but it dies down quickly, and soon enough no one gives them a second look, even when they walk down the street with their wings out.

It works for everyone. Ezio, Shaun, and Minerva settle down into something like a happy family- every once and a while, Ezio will get bored and wander off to some distant corner of the world in search of adventure. Shaun will complain and grumble about it for a while, then pack up Minerva and go after him. He always finds him quickly, and Desmond has an idea that Shaun doesn't actually mind as much as he says he does.

Although Haytham manages to more or less stay out of the spotlight during the whole hospital bomb fiasco, the templars decide he's too much trouble and cut him loose. At first, they try sending men to take him out, and ensure he won't spill any of their secrets- but after five of them fail to return, they admit defeat and stop bothering him, and Haytham is finally able to move in with Rebecca. Roughly a year later she gets pregnant. Haytham later says that if he hadn't been asked roughly a thousand times if they were going to name the kid Connor (Ezio in particular thinks it's hilarious), it would have been one of the best times of his life.

The child ends up being a girl, and they name it Jenny, for Haytham's long dead sister.

Edward drifts around aimlessly, for a while, looking for a place to settle. He's still not entirely readjusted to being human after so long as an eagle, and there are a lot of things he still needs to catch up on. He goes almost everywhere, tries almost everything- he's probably the worst of them all at staying in one place, but the wandering keeps him happy, and he always goes home in the end.

Desmond expects Connor to wander as well, but there he's surprised. Connor seems perfectly content to stay where he is- it's probably the only place in the world where he can fly as much as he wants without attracting stares, so maybe it's not that surprising. And, as Connor points out when Desmond finally gets around to asking, his family is there.

Altair flat out vanishes for a few months, and then returns without Juno's key. He never says whether he'd destroyed it, or only hidden it somewhere, and no one ever asks. Some secrets are safer if they're never told at all. After that, he goes back to writing, and to playing peacekeeper to the rest of his large and prone to be stubborn family. It suits him well, and sometimes Desmond can't help comparing this version of the man to the one he'd seen in the animus. He thinks this one is happier.

And as for Desmond himself…

The first thing he does when he gets home is bury his father. Technically, there's nothing left of William to bury, but Desmond decides it's important that the man has a grave, some way of marking his passing. After all, William had done the same for him when he'd thought Desmond dead in the temple in New York.

Then, he moves on. He finally gets the degree he's just barely missed out on before being captured by Abstergo, gets a real job, and starts remembering how to live like a normal person. It's not as difficult as he would have expected- or maybe the definition of normal has simply been changed forever, after everything that's happened. Either way, Desmond is left with his entire life still in front of him, a future he never expected to have, and the freedom to do whatever he wants with it.

All in all, things could have been a lot worse.

**-/-**

**I have a big problem with endings. They're very hard to write, especially when I'm trying to sum up a trilogy almost 150,000 words long. I really tried to make the final showdown with Juno longer and more dramatic, but I've been working on this every day for the past three and a half months, and I'm just 9000% done. There was a point when I really considered having someone just shoot her in the first paragraph because I was so ready to move onto something new. I'll probably end up writing another wingfic in the future because wow this series has been fun, but I really need a break now.**

**But yea! It's been a fun ride, and I'm honestly grateful for everyone that took the time to read/review/favorite/follow. I particularly enjoy it when someone tells me I've made them cry, because I am in fact a terrible human being. ;) **

**(Seriously though, you guys are awesome, thanks for reading... the end)**


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